A HCM City inspector has announced that no corruption cases were uncovered in the first nine months of this year, despite their admittance that it was a problem.

Deputy Chief Inspector of HCM City Nguyen Thi Ngoc Nga made the comments at a meeting of the municipal People's Council on December 9.

Deputy Chief Inspector of HCM City Nguyen Thi Ngoc Nga at the meeting

Nga cited the city's socio-economic report between January and September as saying that during the period the city carried out 151 inspections at 341 local agencies and units, detecting violations at 30 units valued at VND85 billion (USD4 million) and property including three houses. However, no cases of corruption were uncovered during the phase.

She also noted that corruption in HCM City was still ‘complicated’ and partially attributed to lax management and supervision and complicated administrative procedures. Meanwhile, some localities have been weak in dealing with cases involving corruption. Corruption is widespread in infrastructure construction, public procurement and even the government’s much heralded equitisation process.

At the meeting, Deputy Tran Van Thien from the HCM City People's Council expressed his doubts about Nga’s comments claiming no evidence of corruption had been found in HCM City.

"Vietnam is among countries with the highest levels of corruption in the world. State President Truong Tan Sang pointed out that the fight against corruptions has failed to meet public expectations and he was really sad and ashamed of the growing corruption in the country," Thien said. "Corruption is a national problem, but why this is not on the top agenda of the meeting. What will the city do to deal with corruption in the coming time?" he noted.

Chairman of the municipal People's Committee Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam, said meetings did not restrict deputies from speaking about corruption. However, corruption has been mentioned at many previous meetings of the city's agencies and localities.

Inspectors in Hanoi also said they have found no signs of corruption among individual officials in the city. They however admitted that corruption is “latent” in various forms, including abuse of power to grant land use rights illegally, or faking documents to steal assets from the government and banks.

Dtinews