Vietnam communists open meeting with graft warning
HANOI - Vietnam's communist party opened a five-yearly congress likely to reshuffle the national leadership with a stern warning from the party chief that corruption threatens the regime's survival.
The eight-day meeting, which will set the one-party state's agenda until 2010, comes amid post-war Vietnam's worst graft scandal in which bureaucrats embezzled millions of dollars in state funds.
"The degradation in terms of political ideology, moral quality, lifestyle, opportunism, individualism and bureaucracy, corruption and wastefulness by cadres and civil servants is serious," Nong Duc Manh said.
The party general secretary stressed the "political determination of our party to build a clean and strong leadership and management, to overcome a huge risk that threatens the survival of our system."
Delegates were meeting in Ba Dinh Hall, across a square from the mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary leader and father of communist Vietnam.
Hanoi's streets were awash in red after its 3 million residents were told to hoist national flags by neighbourhood party wardens and in public messages broadcast over loudspeakers.
The meeting is being held amid claims that transport ministry officials stole millions meant for highways, bridges and other projects to buy houses and cars, bet on European football matches and cavort with prostitutes.
The transport minister has stepped down, and several officials have been arrested in the ministry's Project Management Unit 18, where a son-in-law of Manh is also employed.
With communist rhetoric and customary self-criticism, Manh said the party's powerful 150-member Central Committee and the elite 14-member politburo had to take much of the responsibility.
"We need a team of cadres and party members with good moral quality and ability," he said. "This is a key task of vital importance to the party and our people's revolutionary cause."
The 1,176 delegates will elect a new Central Committee with 160 members that will in turn choose the 15 to 17 members of the next politburo.
For the first time, delegates will be allowed to make recommendations for general secretary, to be formally elected by the new Central Committee.
Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, 72, and President Tran Duc Luong, 68, were widely expected to announce their retirements from the politburo, and there has also been speculation on the future of Manh, 65.
The party general secretary, state president and prime minister traditionally hold the first, second and third positions in the politburo -- so changes will signal who will take over top government posts.
Although leadership battles have usually been decided in advance by a party that stresses consensus, it will be the National Assembly that formally elects the nominees to their government posts, possibly as late as July 2007.
Aside from the opening and closing ceremonies, congress proceedings are closed to media and foreign diplomats. In a departure from previous meetings, no foreign delegations have been invited.
Manh also stressed that Vietnam, a country of 83 million people, had to do more to boost its small but rapidly-growing economy, saying it was "still backward compared with many other countries in the region and in the world."
He said the economy must sustain last year's growth of more than 8 per cent to double in size from 2000 to 2010, and he reiterated Vietnam's desire to join the World Trade Organisation this year.
Manh also set targets for 2010 of halving extreme poverty to around 10 percent, creating 8 million jobs and narrowing a growing wealth gap between Vietnam's classes and regions.
Vietnam is now Southeast Asia's fastest-growing economy but like China, its political leaders are seeking to maintain tight political control. Hanoi stresses strict adherence to the thinking of Marx, Lenin and Ho Chi Minh.
Agence France Presse - April 18, 2006.
Vietnam opens Congress to choose new leaders
HANOI - Vietnam's ruling Communist Party opened its five-yearly Congress on Tuesday troubled by corruption and vowing to choose new leaders "with talent and morals" to speed up economic reforms.
The traditionally secretive party, one of only a handful of communist governments in the world, will for the first time give each of the 1,176 delegates the right to recommend candidates for the top post of general secretary, officials said.
Incumbent Nong Duc Manh, 65, has served five years. In his opening speech to the Congress, he said "economic development has not been on a par with capacity" and the party wanted to "further accelerate" the process.
Vietnam President Tran Duc Luong, 69, and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, 72, have both served consecutive five-year terms and were expected to retire, political analysts said.
"The Congress will discuss the course of leading the country and elect new leadership with talent and morals," Dao Duy Quat, a senior culture and ideology official, told state-run media. He said the elite Politburo would consider candidates for general secretary recommended by delegates.
In the past, the Politburo alone chose the general secretary.
The capital, Hanoi, was awash in red flags and banners with the Southeast Asian country's yellow star or yellow hammer and sickle insignia. Red banners hung over the tree-lined boulevards with slogans in yellow such as, "The 10th Congress of the Party, a congress of intelligence, solidarity, reform and sustainable development."
Vietnam wants to become a member of the
World Trade Organization this year. It will also host the summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (
APEC) in November, the largest international event in its history.
Corruption scandal
Corruption was on people's minds as the delegates gathered to decide economic policy and leaders for the next five years. A multi-million dollar bribery and gambling scandal in a big budget road and bridge building agency forced the resignation of the transport minister two weeks ago. His deputy was arrested.
"We want the Communist Party to have a real doi moi (renewal), to carry out determined measures to fight graft," Dinh Xuan Tinh, 71, a war veteran and ex-accountant at a Hanoi paper mill, said in front of the Lenin statue in Hanoi.
"There have been too many words but the results (have been) minimal," he said after an early morning game of badminton. "Action should be taken to make people trust."
A Politburo member last week said corruption "threatens the survival of our regime" and the course of economic development.
The 20-year-long process of moving from a centrally controlled to market-based economy has reduced poverty in the country of 83 million by 31 percent according to government figures. Last year, gross domestic product grew 8.4 percent, one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
Officials said the Congress was focused on sustaining high growth with the goal of making Vietnam a middle-income country by 2020.
But per capita income is only $640 a year and 75 percent of people live in the countryside. Like its fellow communist-run neighbor China, Vietnam grapples with a growing gap between rich and poor.
By Grant McCool & Ho Binh Minh - Reuters - April 17, 2006.
Crisis dogs Vietnam congress
A senior member of the Vietnamese Communist Party has warned that corruption threatens its survival.
A politburo member, Phan Dien, was speaking as the party gathered for its 10th congress.
His comments follow weeks of widespread media coverage about a multi-million dollar scandal involving the management of major infrastructure contracts.
The country's transport minister has been forced to resign after allegations that funds were used for gambling.
International money
On an almost daily basis, the Vietnamese press reveals more about this scandal and the senior officials involved in it.
It centres around a transport ministry project management bureau.
PMU-18, as it is known, is the government's richest state agency.
It manages around $2bn for road construction and other infrastructure projects, using government money as well as funds from overseas donors, notably Japan, the European Union, Australia and the World Bank.
The first sign that something was seriously wrong in PMU-18 came when the head of the bureau was arrested in January and accused of taking around $7m of the unit's budget for gambling on European football matches.
He is also under investigation over the procurement of luxury cars for other government officials.
Deputy Transport Minister Nguyen Viet Tien - a former head of PMU-18 and also a member of the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee - was next to be detained.
And earlier this month, the transport minister himself, Dao Dinh Binh, resigned.
It seemed he was pushed into the move by high-ranking Party officials.
Top issue
Vietnamese press reports say it is also beginning to look as if the PMU-18 network extends into the office of Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, and into senior police ranks.
In recent years the government has taken action against corruption, making officials declare their income and passing laws against money-laundering.
The authorities have promised that this scandal will be fully investigated too.
And they have promised to put the issue at the top of the congress agenda.
But it is a delicate balancing act - scandals like this undermine public confidence in the authorities and risks precious foreign aid.
The World Bank and Japan have already announced that they are sending delegations to Vietnam to investigate.
By Clare Harkey - BBC News - April 18, 2006.
Graft crisis hangs over Vietnam party congress
BANGKOK - Within Vietnam’s Ministry of Transport, Project Management Unit 18 handled more than $2bn allocated for road and bridge building, and other infrastructure crucial to keep Vietnam’s economy powering ahead at 8 per cent a year.
For Bui Tien Dung, the powerful civil servant who ran the unit, the huge amount of cash – much of it from low-interest loans and grants by the World Bank and Japanese government – proved irresistible.
Mr Dung confessed in January to betting $7m (€5.7m, Ł4m) of ministry money on European football matches, instead of spending it on the infrastructure for which it was intended.
Vietnamese have watched with fascination and fury as the scandal claimed even higher-ranking casualties, raising questions about management of public resources by powerful but unaccountable bureaucrats in this Communist-ruled country.
Leaders of Vietnam’s Communist party gather today for their five-yearly party congress, during which they will select a new leadership and to chart the country’s direction. Most pressing will be to tackle the corruption that erodes the party image in the public eye.
“The Vietnamese people have had it with corruption,” said one Hanoi-based western diplomat. “The question is: can the party and government restore their legitimacy by dealing resolutely with this crisis and putting protections in place to get a handle on the problem?”
A Swedish-funded study by the Communist party’s internal affairs committee found 69 per cent of Vietnamese business people and 64 per cent of the general public considered corruption the country’s most serious problem.
The Communist party itself admits that graft is “a national plague” that threatens the future of the regime.
But officials also use their positions in state-owned companies, ministries and government agencies to plunder state assets by buying land and other assets at cheap prices, taking kickbacks on project contracts, throwing lucrative contracts to family companies and embezzling money, the study found.
Vietnam’s Communist leadership has taken steps to try to combat the pervasive graft. In 2004, the then deputy trade minister was arrested for selling garment export quotas.
Senior officials from Vietnam Airlines’ petroleum trading subsidiary were arrested for illegally exporting oil to Cambodia.
In November, the National Assembly adopted legislation requiring government officials and close relatives to file asset declarations.
A purge also took place at Petrovietnam, the state-owned oil and gas company. The general director and his deputy were sacked for misconduct while tendering for Vietnam’s first oil refinery.
For size and scale, the unfolding transport ministry scandal dwarfs recent cases.
Even Vietnam’s retired General Vo Nguyen Giap, the 94-year-old military strategist who masterminded Vietnam’s defeat of French and later of American forces, has expressed concern.
On the front of a state newspaper, Gen Giap said the case highlighted “the seriousness of the degradation and degeneration of some cadres and party members, including party members who are high-ranking officials”.
The scandal highlights difficulties Hanoi faces uprooting corruption from a patronage culture. The accused often seek protection from senior political mentors. Even anti-corruption investigators are sometimes suspect.
Three months after Mr Dung’s confession, his patron, Nguyen Viet Tien, deputy transport minister and former head of the planning unit, was also arrested and charged with negligence and breaking laws of economic management. Dao Dinh Binh, transport minister, was pressed to resign.
Police also began to investigate whether senior anti-corruption investigators and others, including a minister from the office of Phan Van Khai, prime minister, accepted bribes to hide the scandal, a charge vehemently denied by a public security ministry investigator, Major General Cao Ngoc Oanh, among those under suspicion.
“I was never so silly as to handcuff Bui Tien Dung with one hand and take his money with the other,” the investigator told a state-controlled newspaper.
State media on Friday reported the officials had been cleared. But Maj Gen Oanh, a candidate for the powerful Communist party central committee and vice- minister-designate of the public security ministry, has offered to withdraw from the party congress.
Vietnam’s Communist leaders recognise a need to fight graft. But it is unclear whether poorly paid party members will be able to resist temptation.
“They are all addicted to it, like opium,” says Fred Burke, a partner at the law firm Baker & McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City.
By Amy Kazmin - The Financial Times - April 18, 2006.
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