Vietnam minister faces resignation calls amid graft scandal
HANOI - Vietnam's transport minister is under increasing pressure with state media publicly calling for his resignation amid a massive corruption scandal in his ministry.
In a move unusual in Vietnam, several papers said Dao Dinh Binh should be held accountable for the scandal in which public servants stole millions of dollars in state funds earmarked for construction projects, most of it from Japan and other foreign donors.
"Anyone who sees that he has not fulfilled his tasks must suggest a level of sanction against himself," Nguyen Thi Hoai Thu, a member of the national assembly standing committee, was quoted as saying in Tuoi Tre.
"If it's a serious wrongdoing, he must be sacked."
Several printed and online papers said they received "storms" of e-mails asking Binh to go.
"It is painful that state assets have been embezzled by a group of greedy people without conscience," wrote a reader named Le Hoang Anh in VnExpress online paper.
"How long will we have to wait for the resignation of the leaders at the ministry of transport?" he wondered.
Corrupt officials of the ministry's now notorious Project Management Unit (PMU) 18 bet some of the money on top English and Spanish league football matches.
Others allegedly skimmed money off public construction projects, took kickbacks from lucrative state contracts and used official cars as gifts to pay off business contacts, media reports said.
The department former director general, Bui Tien Dung, and some other officials have been arrested and deputy transport minister Nguyen Viet Tien was suspended Wednesday.
But Binh now appears in the firing line.
The communist party's mouthpiece Nhan Dan said Prime Minister Phan Van Khai was disappointed by Binh's refusal to take the blame this week.
Khai asked him to "rewrite his self-criticism letter (to the cabinet) in a more serious and thorough way, admitting his weaknesses and mistakes in state management," the paper said.
These personal attacks are very unusual in Vietnamese state media.
They come as the government has sought to visibly crack down on official corruption just weeks ahead of the ruling communist party's five-yearly congress which will see a major reshuffle of Vietnam's cabinet.
Agence France Presse - April 1st, 2006.
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