Vietnam police detect more corruption in 2001
HANOI - Vietnamese police last year detected
corruption that cost the government 428.3 billion dong ($28.4
million), up 13 percent, state media said on Monday.
Rural unrest and discontent due to corruption and local abuse of power have increased and
become a major source of concern to the ruling Communist Party in recent years and the
issue has been raised as putting off foreign investors.
The Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan (People) daily said the corruption cases were
part of a rising case load for the economic police whose total enquiries, which include
smuggling cases, jumped 20 percent in number last year to 1,420 incidents that caused
state losses of 607.26 billion dong ($40.2 million).
The newspaper did not say how much of the losses could be or had been recovered nor
gave any measure of punishment.
Earlier this month official media said thousands of billion dong of 19,500 billion dong
($1.29 billion) in bad debts in Vietnam's banking system were the result of corruption.
In April 2001, a party official said the party had expelled 3,000 members and disciplined
more than 16,000 others including senior officials in a two-year cleanup campaign covering
corruption, bribery and mismanagement.
Vietnamese law provides the death penalty for anyone found guilty of embezzling 500
million dong ($33,108) or more of state property.
A survey last year by the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy
found Vietnam the most corrupt country in Asia, scoring 9.75 on a scale of ten.
Reuters - January 14, 2002.
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