In Vietnam, top Communist sees corruption as threat
HANOI - he scandal started with a few bets on soccer games - $7 million worth of bets - and it raised such a ruckus here that even the leader of the Communist Party joined in, saying that corruption "threatens the survival of our system."
It was a shocking statement, in late April, from the most powerful man in the land and reflected serious concern at the top over one of the most corrosive and intractable problems in this fast-developing country.
The bets were reportedly placed by the head of PMU18, a government agency that handles hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign development aid for construction projects.
The huge amounts involved were an eye-opener over the audacity of the corruption that seems to pervade Vietnam. In just one bet, according to the local press, $320,000 was lost on a match in Britain between Manchester United and Arsenal on Jan. 3.
The discovery of the bets set investigators on a trail of mansions, mistresses, luxury cars and protection money that led to the resignation in early April of the transport minister and the jailing of his deputy. Three men implicated in the scandal had been on a list of nominees to join the Communist Party Central Committee later that month.
No one outside the ruling circles knows whether the investigators have reached the end of their trail or whether powerful figures have put a stop to them. But already this is the most far-reaching and politically damaging in a series of similar scandals over the years that have chipped away at public confidence in the integrity of the country's leaders.
As Vietnam has opened its economy to the rough and tumble of the free market, officials have spoken often of the need to combat corruption. But investigations and prosecutions have never publicly touched the highest-ranking members of the party and government.
This is a country with many layers of officialdom and large, opaque government agencies that control broad areas of the economy with little oversight. The monitoring group Transparency International has rated Vietnam as one of the most corrupt nations in Asia.
In February, Merrill Lynch said corruption was one of the primary complaints of the business community in Vietnam. "The sheer scale of vested interests will make the process of reform a long and slow one," it said in a report. It suggested employing "a healthy degree of emerging-market cynicism."
Not everyone takes such a dire view.
"I don't see corruption here running totally out of control," said Martin Gainsborough, a Vietnam specialist from Bristol University who is author of a study on the outlook for reform following the Communist Party Congress in April.
"Yes, corruption is endemic," said Gainsborough, who has been looking closely at the subject. "Yes, it's widespread. But it is not as endemic as in some other places."
Whatever its scale, corruption has particular significance here because Vietnam is a one-party state in which the Communists rely on the respect of the public as a basis for legitimacy.
The threat to the system, analysts say, is a perception that many party members are busier becoming rich than carrying out their duties. If the economy were suddenly to slow, they say, this is one area that could become a focus of discontent.
Mai Chi Tho, a former minister of the interior and a member of the party's old guard, said the damage was already being done. "There is now a serious crisis of trust among our people and in our party," he said in April.
The controlled press, testing its limits with investigations and passionate commentaries on the scandal, has offered a taste of this discontent.
Calling the PMU18 case a milestone, the newspaper Thanh Nien said it should spur action by "all Vietnamese patriots," whose taxes were enriching their leaders.
"The country cannot stand any longer the 'tumor' threatening to metastasize, ravaging its host body," the newspaper declared recently. "Now, more than ever, just cut out the tumor from the body before it is too late."
The scandal transfixed the nation in advance of the Communist Party Congress, which is held every five years, with several elder statesmen like Tho saying the party they had built was betraying its heritage.
Most wounding was a comment from Vo Nguyen Giap, the former general who is an icon of Vietnam's victories over both the French and the Americans. In a widely quoted comment he said, "The party has become a shield for corrupt officials."
The Communist Party has been showing an increased sensitivity to public sentiment, and its top leader, General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, may have felt compelled to use strong words when he spoke of a threat to the survival of the system.
"The degradation in terms of political ideology, moral quality, lifestyle, opportunism, individualism and bureaucracy, corruption and wastefulness by cadres and civil servants is serious," he said at the party congress.
The question as soon as he spoke, among both local and foreign analysts, was whether these were simply words or whether they signaled action.
But even Manh's predecessor as general secretary, Le Kha Phieu, has talked of the limits to what even the most powerful leaders can do.
"We should say frankly to each other that corruption is still widespread at a serious level," he told local journalists in 2005. "Myself and Vo Van Kiet, the former prime minister, knew of some particular cases but could not unravel them and make them public.
"Corruption is guarded by the perpetrators and even defended by outside sources. This really is a fierce battle in which, if we wish to win, the party and the state must take a closer look at themselves."
Over the years the government has repeatedly tried to address the problem, and hundreds of midlevel officials have been investigated and arrested. After an uprising in 1997 against corrupt officials in Thai Binh Province, Phieu introduced a set of procedural safeguards at the local level. The party has put in place a monitoring commission, though its power is limited by its lack of independence.
The latest in a series of anti-corruption laws is due to take effect shortly, but experts say that like its precursors it is unlikely to have much immediate or far-reaching impact.
"Implementation of anti-corruption programs is plagued by a paradox: The very actors posited to be the source of the problem are those most critical to implementation success," said a recent report by international aid agencies.
Under the country's closed government system, though, there are no independent actors. If, as Manh said, corruption is a threat to the survival of the system, its cure may require reforms to the system itself.
That is the view of Le Dang Doanh, an official in the Ministry of Planning who is one of the most outspoken members of government.
"If you don't change the system, if you don't introduce transparency, a counterbalance of power, a real voice of the people, a responsible and independent press, you could hardly stop corruption," he said.
"I argue that only 5 percent of the iceberg has been revealed - less than 5 percent," he said. "The other 95 percent is hidden below the surface."
By Seth Mydans - International Herald Tribune - May 5, 2006.
|