HÀ NỘI — A hotline has been set up to receive feedback from people and businesses on the difficulties they may encounter while registering for land use certificates or “red books.”

The hotline was set up by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

Complaints can be made on the hotline number 043.795.7889, via email at cucksqlsdd@gmail.com or through a letter to the ministry’s General Department of Land Management at 10 Tôn Thất Thuyết Street, Nam Từ Liêm District, Hà Nội.

In particular, the ministry will deal with complaints on the long delays and corrupt practices by officials of the local land registration agencies while issuing land use certificates.

The decision to set up a hotline was made following the release of the latest survey on Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) earlier this month. Some 14,000 citizens across the country from different demographic groups were polled for the index.

According to the report, the number of people who had paid bribes to receive the “red book” quickly had increased tremendously.

Compared to 2014, there had been a noticeable spike in the bribes paid for land use rights certificates. The estimated number of respondents who paid bribes to get a land use rights certificate increased to more than 44 per cent in 2015, up from 24 per cent in 2014, according to the report.

More than 22 per cent of those surveyed said they had to wait for more than 100 days to get the land use rights paperwork they had requested for - instead of the 30 days as mandated by the law.

Besides the hotline and the email, Minister Trần Hồng Hà had also asked the General Department of Land Management to work with the people’s committees of the different localities to identify cases of violations and have appropriate punishment in line with regulations. — VNS