ANTI-CORRUPTION IN VIETNAM
Tran Anh Tuan*

I. THE CENTRAL STEERING COMMITTEE FOR ANTI-CORRUPTION OF
VIETNAM AND THE OFFICE OF THE CENTRAL STEERING COMMITTEEIn Vietnam, all agencies, organizations, units and citizens must be responsible forpreventing and fighting corruption, including a number of key agencies: inspectorates,
auditors, investigation agencies, procuracies and courts. To promote the role of theseagencies, organizations, units and citizens in preventing and fighting corruption, on 28
August, 2006, the National Assembly Standing Committee decided to establish theCentral Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption. The Central Steering Committee
consists of 10 members, headed by the Prime Minister, with the Deputy Prime Minister
as Vice Head of the Committee, one permanent member, in charge of operations, andother commissioners including the Inspector General, the Minister of Public Security,
the Prosecutor General of Supreme People’s Procuracy, the Chairman of the Supreme
People’s Court, the Minister of Information and Communication, the Deputy-Head of
the Inspection Commission of the Central Communist Party of Vietnam, and the Vice
Minister of Defense.
The Central Steering Committee has the responsibility to direct, coordinate,inspect and urge anti-corruption activities throughout the country, including directing
and urging the inspection, auditing, investigation, prosecution and adjudication ofserious and complex corruption cases, to ensure the handling of these cases comply withthe provisions of law.

*

Deputy Director, Office of Central Steering Committee for Anti-corruption of Vietnam.

- 137 -

The Central Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption has a consulting andassisting agency, which is the Office of the Central Steering Committee (the standing
member of the Central Steering Committee also is Chief of the Office). The Office isequivalent to Ministerial level, composed of 95 members (to-date), and divided into
eight departments.
II. THE ANTI-CORRUPTION LAW AND THE NATIONAL STRATEGY ON
PREVENTING AND COMBATING CORRUPTION TOWARDS 2020
On 29 November 2005, the National Assembly of Vietnam issued the AntiCorruption Law (LAC). To implement this law, the Government and the Central
Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption have directed the authorities to conduct
research and build the National Strategy for Anti-corruption. This task was assigned to
the Government Inspectorate. The Office of Central Steering Committee for AntiCorruption (OSCAC) is responsible for coordinating with the Government Inspectorate
to build the strategy.
The strategy sets out five solutions:(i) To enhance openness and transparency in policy formulation anddevelopment and implementation of the law;(ii) To perfect the public service regimes, civil servants, improving the quality ofofficial duties performance;(iii) To perfect the mechanism of economic management, building a fair andtransparent business environment;(iv) To improve the efficiency and effectiveness of inspecting, monitoring,auditing, investigating, prosecuting and trial in the detection and handling of corruption;- 138 -

(v) To raise awareness and promote the role of society in anti-corruption.
III. THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION AGAINST CORRUPTION AND
THE IMPLEMENTATION PLAN OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONVENTIONAGAINST CORRUPTION OF VIETNAM
On 10 December 2003, Vietnam officially signed the UN Convention Against
Corruption (hereinafter referred to as the Convention) at the Summit held in Merida,
Mexico. After nearly six years of research and assessment on the conformity of theVietnamese legal system, as well as difficulties, challenges and solutions in
implementing the Convention, on 30 June 2009, the President of the Socialist Republicof Vietnam officially ratified the Convention by Decision No. 950/2009/QD-CTN. The
Convention officially came into effect for Vietnam on 18 September 2009.
A. Law on Signing, Accession and Implementation of International Treaties of2005 and the Law on Enactment of Legal Normative Documents of 2008
In order to actively implement the Convention, Vietnam officially issued an
Implementation Plan of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (underDecision No. 445/QD-TTg, dated 7 April 2010 of the Prime Minister). This plan fullycomplies with regulations on the position and application of international treaties inVietnam. The objectives, contents and roadmaps of this plan are synchronized withthose of the National Strategy on Preventing and Combating Corruption towards 2020of Vietnam; especially, it sets the specific tasks and roadmap for institutionalization andimplementation of regulations and requirements of the Convention and serves as thebasis for the implementation process.
According to the plan, the key tasks in implementing the Convention include:- 139 -

(i) Continuing to propagate and disseminate legislation on the prevention ofcorruption and contents of the Convention. This measure will help raise the awarenessof cadres, civil servants and other classes of people on anti-corruption laws and theConventions.
(ii) Conducting research and making proposals on perfecting legal documents ofVietnam on measures to prevent corruption, including:Strengthening the independence and performance of the anti-corruption agencies;
perfecting the mechanism and rules on publicity, transparency and preventing
corruption in public procurement;
Perfecting regulations in the financial and banking sectors to prevent money
laundering;
Perfecting the mechanisms and policies for cadres, officials of anti-corruption
agencies;
Perfecting regulations on remuneration of people who have made achievements inthe prevention of corruption, as well as codes of conduct and ethics for staff, public
officials;
Perfecting audit standards, increasing transparency in the financial and accounting
sectors and transparency of assets and income of civil servants;
Building a system of criteria to evaluate and measure corruption and theeffectiveness of anti-corruption work;
Making state-administrative-management work public and transparent;
Simplifying administrative procedures and ensuring periodical reports; and- 140 -

Providing information on the situation of corruption and outcomes of anticorruption work.
(iii) Supplementing corruption offences and law enforcement regulations,
including: supplements to the Penal Code on the offences of offering bribes of foreign
public officials and public servants of public international organizations;
Researching and proposing solutions for the criminalization of acts of corruption
in the private sector for the offences of offering and taking bribes and embezzlement in
the private sector, any illegal enrichment behaviour and criminal liability of legal
persons;
Researching and proposing the concretization and perfection of the regulations onprotection of witnesses, experts and victims and regulations on international cooperationin witness protection.
(iv) Completing mechanisms for international cooperation against corruption,
including legal provisions on mutual legal assistance, extradition, transfer of sentenced
persons, joint investigation and application of special investigation techniques;
Increasing the exchange of international and regional experiences on anticorruption and Convention implementation.
(v) Perfecting the mechanism of recovery of corrupted assets, including research,
proposals to supplement the implementation of civil parts in criminal judgments offoreign courts;
International cooperation on the recovery of corrupted assets;
Modifying and supplementing regulations on transparency of assets and income;- 141 -

Researching and proposing measures to control the assets and incomes of cadresand public servants.
(vi) Enhancing working facilities and improving professional and corruption
crimes investigation techniques for cadres in charge of anti-corruption work andstrengthening international cooperation in training and retraining for anti-corruption
specialized staff;
Building mechanisms to exchange information, documents, data for theprevention of corruption with other countries;
Conducting a general review and evaluation of the implementation of the legal
documents on anti-corruption and conducting surveys and interviews in order to collectinformation, analyse, evaluate and propose measures to prevent corruption in the fieldsof state management.
Also in accordance with the Convention, the requirements of the Conference of
the State Parties to the UNCAC as well as the existing laws of Vietnam, theGovernment of Vietnam assigned the Government Inspectorate as the national central
authority in providing information on anti-corruption work to the international
community and as the lead agency providing advice for the Government in theimplementation of the Convention in Vietnam.
B. Inter-Sectoral Working Group to implement the Convention
Vietnam established the inter-sectoral working group to implement theConvention (on 11 March 2010 under Decision No. 434/QD-TTCP of the Government
Inspector General) and a team of government experts to review the implementation of
the Convention (on 2 June 2010 under Decision No. 776/QD-TTg of the Prime
Minister).
- 142 -

Members of the UNCAC working group and review team are researchers,
managers and practitioners representing different agencies related to the implementationof the Convention, such as the Ministry of Public Security, the Supreme People’s
Procuracy, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Office of theGovernment, the Office of the Central Steering Committee on preventing andcombating corruption and the Government Inspectorate. The heads of the working
group and review team are the leaders of the Government Inspectorate.
IV. THE RESULTS OF ANTI-CORRUPTION WORK SINCE THE
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STRATEGY, UNCAC
In recent years, the State of Vietnam continues to show its political will and highdetermination in anti-corruption work. This is reflected through the enactment by theState of various anti-corruption proposals, policies and initiatives, including:(i) Simplification of administrative procedures (Proposal 30);(ii) Transparency of assets and income (Decree No. 37/2007/NĐ-CP, amended
and supplemented by Decree No. 68/2011/NĐ-CP);(iii) Regular rotation of working positions of public servants in several sectors andbranches (Decree No. 158/2007/NĐ-CP);(iv) The National Strategy on Preventing and Combating Corruption towards 2020
(Resolution 21/NQ-CP dated 12/5/2009);(v) Integration of anti-corruption contents into educational training programmes(Decision No. 137/2009/QĐ-TTg);(vi) UNCAC Implementation Plan (Decision No. 445/QĐ-TTg);- 143 -

(vii) Launching of Anti-corruption Initiatives Program on an annual basis;(viii) Holding an annual meeting to appraise individuals having significant
achievements in anti-corruption;(ix) Ratifying and beginning the implementation of the UNCAC, etc.
After nearly two years deploying the UNCAC implementation plan, at the time ofreview (June 2011), Vietnam has carried out synchronizing solutions to promote theimplementation of the Convention in the following areas:
A. Perfection of Institutions
Regarding the perfection of institutions, Vietnam has:z

enacted a number of laws to improve public services and public officials’
mechanisms and inspection work, such as the Public Servants Laws, Cadres Law,
Inspection Law (amended and supplemented);zissued a national action plan against money laundering and terrorism financing;z

is continuing to conduct research on a theoretical and practical basis for thecriminalization of certain acts of corruption, as well as acts of taking and giving
bribery in the private sector, and embezzling assets in the private sector;z

promulgated and launched, through its ministries, sectors and administrative levels,
the implementation of codes of conduct by officials and public servants;zissued regulations on remuneration of individuals with outstanding achievements inreporting and detecting acts of corruption;z

modified regulations on transparency of assets, income, etc.

- 144 -

z

In particular, on 2 December 2009, the Prime Minister issued Decision
No.137/2009/QĐ-TTg approving the Proposal to integrate anti-corruption contents
into educational and training programmes. This is one of the important documents
which shows the proper awareness of the Party and State in the fight against
corruption, taking prevention as the core, promoting the work of education andtraining for public servants, students, pupils in preventing and combating corruption.

B. Implementation of Concrete Measures
Regarding implementation of concrete measures on prevention of corruption,
Vietnam is:zcontinuing to speed up inspection, examining, audit, investigation, supervision inorder to proactively prevent and detect corruption;zraising public awareness through the promotion of anti-corruption communication
activities and promoting active participation of the public on the prevention andfight against corruption by improving the quality the bi-annual Anti-corruption
Dialogues between the Government of Vietnam and the community of international
donors and organizations, as well as the political-social-professional organizations;zencouraging and supporting people to actively propose initiatives to fight against
corruption through Anti-Corruption Initiative Vietnam (VACI) programme.
Through two years of implementation, the corruption situation is still complicated,

but in some areas has been restrained. The number of detected corruption cases has
shown a decreasing trend. For example: from 1 October 2010 until 31 July 2011, 183cases/349 defendants were prosecuted for corruption (a decrease of 25% in cases and
13% in number of defendants compared to the same period in 2010).

- 145 -

V. DIFFICULTIES AND CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING THE
STRATEGY, UNCAC
A. The Strategy
The difficulties and challenges in implementing the strategy are the same as infighting corruption. First, corruption happens in many fields and sectors. In addition,
corruption also occurs within some agencies who have the function of preventing andcombating corruption; therefore, the effectiveness of anti-corruption activities withinthese agencies is not high. As a result, the investigation and handling of some
corruption cases have been prolonged and difficult.
B. The UNCAC(i) Many regulations of Vietnamese laws and MLA treaties between Vietnam andother countries have not been adequate and synchronized. The process of negotiating,signing, amending, or supplementing MLA treaties between Vietnam and othercountries, the process of researching, developing or amending existing laws to adapt thepractical situation of Vietnam, and at the same time ensuring the synchronization withthe provisions of other international treaties that Vietnam has concluded will require
extensive experiences, time, labour, budget and synchronizing collaboration among
relevant authorities of Vietnam.
(ii) Vietnamese infrastructure, as well as technical conditions and international
experience in anti-corruption work, are still limited. Language barriers, lack of working
skill in international environments; and limited access to distinctive political and legal
regimes will be the obstacles and challenges for public servants of Vietnam whenparticipating in international anti-corruption cooperation efforts.

- 146 -

(iii) Awareness of the Convention and the implementation of the Convention bycertain public servants and citizens is, in general, inadequate due to limited
dissemination and research about the Convention.
Currently, the Government and the Central Steering Committee have directed theGovernment Inspectorate in collaboration with OSCAC and concerned agencies anddepartments to conduct a review of the first stage of strategy implementation, and link itwith reviewing the five-year implementation of the Anti-corruption Law in order tosupplement and perfect the strategy’s implementation plan to meet the requirements ofStage 2.

- 147 -