PM tough on corruption

During a new year meeting last week, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung stressed the need to step up the progress of administration reform, which he considered a prime catalyst in accelerating the country’s economic growth and competitiveness.
Though the country’s youngest leader, the PM is leading the reform process with determination, and has urged ministries and local authorities to join him in building the effectiveness and quality of the administrative system.
“We must be determined to create a breakthrough in administration reform, which is a boost for the country’s overall development,” the PM said during the meeting.
The PM highlighted “the maintenance of bureaucracy, time-wasting and complicated administrative procedures resulting in the diminishing of the people’s confidence [in the government], low competitiveness and high costs [in terms of time and money] over the past years,” as being the main administrative faults that need to be addressed.
Administration reform will cover a wide range of tasks including the improvement in institutionalisation, legal system, public finance system, transparency, administration decentralisation, and the abolishment of overlapping and unnecessary sub-licensing to create more favourable conditions for business and living.
Furthermore, the government will promote the fight against waste, losses and corruption to build confidence among the people and foreign investors as part of Vietnam’s overall reform determination.
“We have built all the needed laws and regulations against bureaucracy, losses and corruption and the whole political system has been taking part in [this course]. I strongly believe that strong determination will help us successfully achieve this goal,” PM Dung stressed.
The government admitted that the fight against corruption was not carried out in all parts of the country last year and punishments dealt out were not harsh enough to deter others from profiting from illegal activities.
This year, however, it plans to quickly focus on building regulations to deal with asset and income clarification, State cadre rotation and gifts for State officials in the first quarter.
“The main concern of the people is that State organisations make strides to strengthen their fight against corruption. Parallel with administration [reforms], the struggle against corruption is the greatest need to boost socioeconomic development to serve the people across the country,” PM Dung said.
The government is also determined to accelerate the economic growth rate to 8.5 per cent compared to last year’s figure of 8.2 per cent - considering growth a pre-condition for higher and sustainable development.
Prime Minister Dung said that with the country’s recent successes, such as WTO membership status, permanent normal trade relations with the US and recognition for the organisation of the APEC summit, Vietnam’s status in the international arena had gone up a notch. “All of these successes helped build a new and stronger status and power for Vietnam and pushes us to bring the country’s economic growth to such a higher level to meet national growth demand.”
High economic growth with considerable reforms within the country during the last year was widely recognised by the international community, which committed the largest ODA for Vietnam this year at $4.45 billion. Foreign direct investment was also recorded at $10.2 billion last year.




No. 796/January 15-21, 2007