A series of high-profile corruption cases have been and are about to go to trial in the last days of 2023, under the direction of the Anti-Corruption and Negligence Agency, headed by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
Tried cases such as AIC of Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan, rescue flight…, then soon FLC of Trinh Van Quyet, Tan Hoang Minh of Do Anh Dung, along with the big case of Viet A, Van Thinh Phat by Truong My Lan, etc., but it is not the end.
With General Secretary Trong’s anti-corruption achievements that the state-controlled media always praises, but for some reason, the more Vietnam fights corruption, the more corruption spreads, especially in stature and scale. In the past, corrupt officials only dared to corrupt at most a couple of billions, but now, corruption is at least a few tens of billions, even thousands of billions.
There was only one Head of the Government’s Interdisciplinary Inspection Team for SCB Bank, yet SCB personally bribed Do Thi Nhan up to $5.2 million, equivalent to VND118 billion. All of that bribe money was intended for the Inspection Team to cover up and not handle serious violations of SCB Bank.
During these days, public opinion is pessimistic and asking questions, and then here, we don’t know how many more “big cases” and “super big cases” will be revealed. Because after the case of Van Thinh Phat and Truong My Lan was discovered, there is no guarantee that if large real estate businesses, such as VinGroup, SunGroup, NovaLand, etc. are touched, they will not be affected.
Since the 12th National Congress of the ruling party in 2016, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has launched a “burn the furnace” campaign, a copy of Xi Jinping’s “kill the tiger and kill the flies” campaign in China.
Initially, the people applauded and praised General Secretary Trong with all their might for “overthrowing” Dinh La Thang – an unprecedented deed. At that time, the people eagerly hoped that his “furnace” would become increasingly red, and the anti-corruption work would detect and wipe out all “internal invaders“?
But at that time, the Vietnamese people forgot another figure, also “the king knows the face, the lord knows the name,” also a Politburo member, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee like Dinh La Thang. That is the “worm king” Le Thanh Hai, whose crime is said to be hundreds, ten thousand times more than that of Dinh La Thang. Yet, it is unclear why this “king worm” has remained unharmed until now?
Public opinion affirms that if General Secretary Trong really fights corruption as he often asserts “There are no prohibited areas or avoidance zones in fighting corruption” then surely, Le Thanh Hai will not be allowed to use his power to create conditions for Truong My Lan and Van Thinh Phat to develop. Then, this group of scammers easily appropriated more than VND300 trillion, equivalent to $12.5 billion at SCB Bank.
Notably, the General Secretary’s unintentional or intentional failure was assessed by Professor Zachary Abuza, when analyzing the Van Thinh Phat case “this is a serious failure of supervision and inspection in work of anti-corruption.” Yet, one year after Truong My Lan was arrested, to date, not a single senior official in the Government or the State Bank system has been prosecuted for this scandal.
After the discovery of Truong My Lan and Van Thinh Phat, those who had long been proud of the General Secretary’s fight against corruption suddenly woke up and lamented that Trong fought “internal invaders” but let his troops protect and dominate all battlefields, and causes trouble for the country like never before? Proving that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is not talented at all?
The Anti-Corruption Agency has a clear name, “Central Steering Committee for preventing and combating corruption and negativity.” Let’s say it to see that there is not only dealing with, but also a Preventive function. Even “prevention” is more important than “fighting” corruption. General Secretary Trong has forgotten this important responsibility by not paying attention to “prevention of corruption.”
Specifically, on January 9, 2014, Vietnamnet newspaper published the article “Van Thinh Phat Chairwoman Lan in the testimony of Duong Chi Dung.” The article reads:
“On the afternoon of January 8, the Trial Panel of the People’s Court of Hanoi announced the decision to prosecute the criminal case ‘Revealing state secrets’.” The jury also requested the Hanoi People’s Procuracy to request the Supreme People’s Procuracy to investigate the act of receiving $500,000 and VND20 billion of a high-ranking official. If there are enough grounds, it must be handled in accordance with the provisions of law.”
After the article was published, up to now, the question to the problem mentioned by Vietnamnet has not been answered.
Public opinion questioned, when the press reported, but the General Secretary – in the role of leader – and the authorities ignored and did not handle it, causing major consequences, who should bear the responsibility?
Thoibao.de (Translated)
