French ambassador : Viet Nam progresses in ODA use
HANOI - The Vietnamese Government has paid due attention, as early as it could, to increasing the effectiveness of the use of official development assistance (ODA), and has so far shown progress, said French Ambassador to Viet Nam Jean-Francois Blarel.
Talking with the Vietnam News Agency, the French diplomat mentioned the fact that France is the leading European aid donor to Viet Nam's socio-economic development programmes, therefore, its top concern is how its aid has been used.
"We see that the relevant Vietnamese agencies have given special care to the matter and though there remain problems that need to be addressed, we have taken notice of the country's determination in bettering the use of ODA," the French Ambassador said.
Commenting on the Vietnamese Government's treatment of the corruption scandal at the Ministry of Transport and Communication's Project Management Unit 18 (PMU 18), Blarel said, "The Vietnamese Government has buckled down in the fight against corruption and considers it to be a critical task."
He expressed his hope that the scandal will be resolved as soon as possible and strict punishments doled out so as to discourage similar cases in the future.
"Viet Nam's fight against the scourge of corruption has been on the right track," the Ambassador said, referring to the establishment of inspectorates to check the use of public funds and the National Assembly's higher authority in monitoring administrative offices and their usage of various public funds as examples to support his view.
Blarel stressed the need for Viet Nam and its donors to sit down and draw lessons from the PMU 18 scandal.
"For the donors' part, we will steer our activities to the anti-corruption efforts more than before through cooperation programmes on the administration field, hoping to create various tools to counter the menace of corruption," Blarel noted.
He expressed France's willingness to share its anti-corruption experiences with Viet Nam, especially in inspecting financial activities.
Vietnam News Agency - April 15, 2006.
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