Deputy head of the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission Trieu Tai Vinh is disciplined for his violations while serving as Party chief of Ha Giang Province – PHOTO: TNO

At a meeting in Hanoi on January 10, the Politburo found that the incumbent deputy head of the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission, who was appointed last July, had made grave errors and shortcomings in his previous posts.

The Politburo held the 51-year-old Vinh accountable as the then-leader of the province’s Party standing board for the serious violations during the 2018 examination, as a total of 107 candidates, including his own daughter, had their scores illegally revised upwards to earn entry into universities.

Consequently, a number of the province’s officials and Party members were being disciplined or criminally prosecuted, including those under the umbrella of the local Party unit.

The province’s then-Party chief was negligent in his leadership and instructions over the inspection, oversight, detection and handling of violations in the examination.

As such exam violations emerged, Vinh was allegedly indecisive and not strict with individual and organizational violators, and did not take action in a timely manner.

He also failed to comply with the Politburo’s regulations on the Party leadership of law enforcement agencies.

Vinh’s younger sister, Trieu Thi Giang, also committed violations in the exam. Upon learning about it, he shirked his responsibility by failing to set an example among Party officials and members, in line with the Party Central Committee’s regulations.

His daughter, Trieu Ngoc M., had actually scored 6 in Mathematics, 7.5 in Literature and 8 in English, rather than the respective scores of 9.4, 7.5 and 10, as listed in the first score announcement, according to Tuoi Tre newspaper.

“At first, when I heard my daughter earned a very high score, I thought she will go to university this year. After learning her score was altered, I asked her about it and felt a bit sad. How her score was altered, I don’t know,” Vinh was quoted by the news website VnExpress as saying last July.

Last October, Vinh’s sister Giang, deputy head of the external economic relations division at the Ha Giang Department of Planning and Investment, was reprimanded by the provincial Party Inspection Committee for requesting others to raise the scores of her niece.

Also, Vinh’s wife, Pham Thi Ha, deputy director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, was warned by the local inspection committee to thoroughly review and learn from her experience, for letting her sister-in-law meddle in the organization of the examination.

That month saw four former senior educators and one ex-police officer in Ha Giang imprisoned with one- to eight-year sentences for abusing their power for personal gain.

Nguyen Thanh Hoai, former head of the Testing and Quality Assurance Division under the Ha Giang Department of Education and Training, received the longest jail term, of eight years, while his deputy, Vu Trong Luong, was sentenced to seven years behind bars.

Investigations revealed that Luong had intervened in the results of 309 test sheets belonging to 107 students to increase their scores. Some students ended up with results more than 20 points higher than they had actually earned.

The 2018 national high school examination was taken by 5,400 candidates in Ha Giang, with three of them ranking among the top 11 test-takers nationwide. For the physics test, 65 students scored nine or higher, accounting for 67% of the country’s total. The abnormal results triggered a social uproar. SGT

Thanh Thom