Organization: Vietnam Insight
Editor: Chan Tran
Address: PO Box 7826, San Jose, CA 95150, USA
Phone: (408) 226-2261
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.seasia-l
Date:         Thu, 16 Apr 1992 14:12:38 PDT
From:         Vietnam Insight <vinsight%netcom.com@HUSC6.BITNET>
Subject:      Corruption and Obsoleteness in Vietnam

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CORRUPTION HARD TO KILL FROM THE TOP
*********

According to Vietnam's most critical newspaper "Youths," the "See and
Hear Education Center," which belongs to the Ministry of Education and
Training, was recently investigated for allegedly printing 29
unauthorized materials, including fake labels for imitated overseas
merchandises.

When a "Cultural Control" team of Saigon's fifth district came to the
center to investigate, they were met with rage and ugly curse from the
director of the centre, Vo Duy Linh -- a high-ranking cadre of the
Education Ministry, also a writer and a play director. He personally
threw one member of the "Control" team out by the neck.

The investigation ended in volunteering withdrawal of the investigating
team and no charge was ever made against the center.

The case sadly demonstrates Vietnam's pervasive corruption that has
permeated to even educational institutions, and why countermeasure is
ineffective for corruption has begun from the top.

By Hanoi's official sources, "If taking the degree of corruption in 1976
as the base for comparison, corruption in 1977 had increased by 320%,
1980 - 640%, 1985 - 1800%, 1987 - 2000%, 1988 - 2230%..." The report
did not say whether corruption had decreased or increased in 1990 and
1991. However, uncovered cases of corruption in 1991 indicated corruption
in Vietnam has become more and more sophisticated and better organized,
with most cases involving high-ranking members and cadres.

According to the State Bank's information, in the first ten months of
1991 alone, US$250 worth of merchandise and 5 tons of gold had been
illegally imported and exported accordingly; the extension of these
illegal dealings could not have happened without the corrupted hands of
the upper authorities. With Vietnam's state-owned companies struggling
to survive and severe shortage in cash, the economy hopelessly heads for
the abyss as widespread smuggling takes its deadly toll; while the root
cause of the problem -- corruption -- is spreading fast and proven
incurable under the current system.

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FASCIMILE COULD BE PUNISHABLE IN VIETNAM
*********

For political control, all letters and messages in and out of Vietnam
are being censored by the government. However, a deeper motive -- making
money -- has governed all practices of the law in Vietnam. And with
these two reasons, facsimile and telephone businesses have came under
the state's scrutiny.

Some foreign companies doing business in Vietnam in their urgent needs
for fast communication, have tried to bypass the slow process of
government's control and bureaucratic cumbersome by communicating
directly with their foreign offices. They ended paying not only fine but
in some cases, also had their facsimile machines confiscated and
threatened with prison terms.

Among those that had run into this trouble with the Vietnamese
government were Casidy Trading Singapore, who was fined $US116 per
facsimile which totalled to US$35,000 for the 301 unauthorized
facsimiles it had sent; EDC 6 Company of Vung Tau and Con Dao was fined
23 million dong (equivalent to US$2000) for communicating directly with
AVN and Amsinvi companies in Australia; Hotel Boss was fined 1,102,000
dong for communicating directly with EDC 6; Viettrans Saigon was fined
US$20,000 for receiving and sending 178 facsimiles from and to TNT in
the USA...

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INVESTMENT TURNS INTO SCRAP
********

In September, 1984, a contract was signed between Saigon's University of
Science and Bitex, an import-export company, to process and export
freeze-dry foods. The costly research and development work took three
years and a huge task force of professionals to complete. In April,
1988, the project received the top award at the conference "The City's
best research and application of science."

The freeze-dry machine, whose price tag in 1987 was 40 ounces of gold,
was left idle until early this year -- a Bitex's director had ordered
the machine's dismantled to be sold to Mr. Nguyen Chau Ky for 6 ounces
of gold. The machine's parts were later found on sale at 100 Hung Vuong
Street for 78 million Dong (about 15 ounces of gold).

This is how a research effort of three years, which had costed the state
a large sum and numerous manpower, went wasted. The project was only a
small example of mismanagement in Vietnam today, which if allowed to
continue, will lead to no development regardless of how much foreign aid
is to be flown into the country.
--
Vietnam Insight (vinsight@netcom.com)
Chan Tran, editor
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