Vietnamese Party leader Nguyễn Phú Trọng chairs the Central Steering Committee on Anti-corruption. — VNA/VNS Photo Trí Dũng

HÀ NỘI — “The stronger the anti-corruption drive, the stronger we become, the stronger the Party becomes, and the stronger the belief of the people in the Party, State, and administration.”

That was the message that the Party leader Nguyễn Phú Trọng stated on Friday as he chaired a meeting of the standing commission of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption in Hà Nội.

The drive will help clean the system, tighten discipline and contribute to efforts in national development and maintenance of political stability, he said.

Party leader Trọng also rejected the false claim of the hostile forces who piped that the fight against corruption and the handling of party officials and members was an internal struggle for power and a factional competition.

“This is for Party building purposes, not to create internal disputes,” he noted, stressing that anti-corruption is for the survival of the Party and the prosperity of the nation.

In recent times, when an official sees his own wrongdoing or shortcoming he could resign from the post and move to another position without any need for an official warning or disciplinary measure, or if an official is disciplined and removed from the post, the deputy could replace him as an acting leader until a new person could be vetted as appropriate to lead, Trọng said, adding that this is an improvement and a practice fitting the demands of reality.

The Party leader noted that while anticorruption has seen very considerable achievements, there remain big issues – slow handling of some cases, especially in asset valuation; corruption remains complicated and serious in some areas, especially in land, bidding, securities and corporate bond issuance; collusion between degenerate officials and organisations and companies to make illegal profits; loopholes in legal provisions that are not fixed in due time; inefficient internal supervision efforts; and unsatisfactory progress in corrupt asset recovery.

The Party leader remarked that in the fight against negative phenomena and corruption, it is necessary to act decisively and synchronously, and strengthen inspection, supervision, and auditing to detect corruption and conduct investigations and prosecutions.

Offences must be strictly handled according to the motto of “no forbidden zone, no exception,” he added.

The fact that members of the Party Central Committee, ministers, deputy minister, Party secretaries and chairs of provinces and cities and many high-ranking officials were disciplined and had to face legal action is the clearest evidence of the anti-corruption drive, Trọng noted, adding that even criminals who have fled abroad must not be able to escape the judgment of the law.

To date, agencies nationwide have prosecuted and investigated 2,474 cases with 4,646 accused, prosecuted 2,157 cases with 4,564 defendants, and conducted first-instance trials of 2,198 cases with 4,620 defendants for crimes of corruption, abusing position and economic wrongdoings.

For cases under the supervision and direction Steering Committee, 10 new cases with 37 defendants have been prosecuted and 16 cases with 248 defendants have been completed.

The investigative agencies of the Ministry of Public Security and the Supreme People's Procuracy actively handled many particularly serious and complicated corruption cases occurring both in the state and non-state sectors including the bribery case involving repatriation flights at the Consular Department (Ministry of Foreign Affairs); the cases at FLC Group, Vạn Thịnh Phát, Tân Hoàng Minh, and AIC groups.

Three new cases were added to the list of the committee’s supervision, including the violations at the commercial service residence complex Imperia Sky Garden at No 423 Minh Khai Street (Hà Nội), the violations regarding equitisation at the State-owned Tín Nghĩa Corp (Đồng Nai Province), and violations at the residential area project Tân Thịnh (also in Đồng Nai). — VNS