Vietnam minister nabbed for graft
HANOI - Vietnamese Deputy Trade Minister Mai Van Dau was arrested Thursday following an investigation into a cash-for-quota scandal over textile exports to the United States, police said. Dau, 62, the most senior of four deputy ministers, was charged with "abuse of power" and taken into custody after a search of his office and home in the capital, the Hanoi Investigative Police Department said. He is the highest ranking official to have been arrested following a police inquiry into the alleged sale of quotas by ministry officials to Vietnam-based companies wishing to export garments to the United States.
Four other trade ministry officials, including Dau's son, and around a dozen businessmen and state employees have already been arrested in connection with the case. The textile sector is the communist nation's second biggest foreign exchange earner after crude oil, but clothing exports to the United States, its most important market, are capped by Washington. One of Dau's responsibilites was approving the allocation of quotas by the ministry's import-export department.
Last month the ministry's Communist Party committee ordered him to write a letter of self-criticism for the corruption within the department. "Mai Van Dau must be held responsible because he had an important role in the negative case of garment quota allocation," the official Vietnam News Agency said Thursday. The minister stopped working after his son's arrest on September 30. The government's image has been badly tarnished over the past year by a series of damaging graft scandals.
The Associated Press - November 19, 2004
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