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

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Vietnam minister offers to quit

The Vietnamese transport minister, Dao Dinh Binh, has offered to resign amid a major corruption scandal. In a letter to the prime minister, Mr Binh said he accepted responsibility for the embezzlement of millions of dollars of state money by his staff. Ministry officials are accused of using money from construction projects and taking bribes, which they allegedly used to bet on football matches. Ministerial resignations are extremely rare in Vietnam.

'Very saddened'

"I'm very saddened and would like to take full responsibility for what happened at the ministry," the Tien Phong [Pioneer] newspaper quoted Mr Binh's resignation letter as saying. His offer to step down comes as the Vietnamese government is publicly cracking down on the country's endemic levels of corruption. The anti-graft campaign has intensified ahead of the ruling Communist Party's five-yearly congress later this month. In June 2004, Agriculture Minister Le Huy Ngo stepped down over a corruption case, the first to do so since the 1980s.

BBC News - April 4, 2006.