~ Le Viêt Nam, aujourd'hui. ~
The Vietnam News

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Corruption threatens our survival, says Vietnam official

HANOI - Vietnam must address the rampant corruption which is threatening the very survival of the communist party, a member of the politburo said after a major embezzlement scandal. Politburo member Phan Dien said insufficient steps had been taken to prevent corruption, embezzlement and wrongdoing in party and state organizations and called for the issue to be addressed at the communist party congress next week.

"These phenomena are still very serious in society and they represent an urgent concern of the entire party and people," Dien told a press conference in Hanoi ahead of the 10th party congress. Corruption "is also a danger even for the party and the survival of our political system," Dien said. Vietnam has been rocked by a scandal in which millions of dollars, including foreign funds intended for infrastructure projects, were syphoned off by the transport ministry's now notorious Project Management Unit (PMU) 18. The unit was a ministry department founded in 1993 and in charge of constructing highways, bridges and other infrastructure projects.

Officials there for years skimmed money off public projects, took kickbacks from lucrative state contracts, and used official cars as gifts for business contacts. Some of the money was used to buy property and to bet on top English and Spanish league football matches. Transport Minister Dao Dinh Binh was forced to resign and his deputy minister Nguyen Viet Tien was arrested. PMU 18's former director general, Bui Tien Dung, and several other officials were also detained. Asked repeatedly if the government was planning to introduce initiatives to tackle the rampant corruption, Dien said: "We have not achieved any fundamental, radical changes." "Our priority is how to fight corruption and wastefulness in a more efficient and effective manner," he said.

The party congress, held every five years, starts on Tuesday and will last eight days. It is likely to involve a major cabinet reshuffle and will also decide whether current general secretary Nong Duc Manh remains in his post. State media has been unusually aggressive on the corruption issue in recent weeks, openly accusing relatives of top officials of involvement in the scam. Several sources have told AFP that the fallout from the PMU 18 scandal is ongoing and that more heads will likely roll in the coming days. "The PMU 18 scandal raises many serious questions about the political system and the way it works," leading economist Le Dang Doanh said in Tuesday's edition of the Tuoi Tre daily.

General Vo Nguyen Giap, highly revered in Vietnam for defeating the French colonial army in 1954, wrote a letter to the party asking for the PMU 18 issue to be officially mentioned on the congress agenda. "Five years ago, the PMU 18 scandal was discovered but was then covered up. The party has become a shield for corrupted officials," Giap wrote in the letter published Thursday in state media. Although large corruption scandals have dogged previous party congresses, this one has received widespread coverage in the state media and could have more significant consequences, observers say.

"These things have definitely not been published without being checked," one foreigner said. "But the facts remain that some people have made the decision to go public on this. Whatever their motives are, it creates public discussion. "This could be a sort of turning point. When you decide to get to the public, it is very difficult to turn back," the observer said.

Agence France Presse - April 13, 2006.