Only 17 officials have been found to have cheated in their declaration of assets according to the Government Inspectorate at the meeting reviewing 10 years of anti-corruption law implementation on July 12.

The meeting reviewing 10 years of anti-corruption law implementation held on July 12.

Inspector General Phan Van Sau said they prosecuted 2,500 cases with 5,447 offenders. Since 2007, 99.5% of officials have submitted their declarations on time and 98% of the declarations have been published.

However, despite the high rate, they still have many difficulties with verification process. Out of 4,900 cases, only 17 officials have been found to have lied about their assets and 70 people were punished for carrying out the declaration process wrongly.

Officials were asked to hand over their gifts to the state but the Government Inspectorate said this was impractical and ineffective. From 2006 to 2015, 879 officials handed their gifts valued at just over VND3.3bn (USD150,000).

According to Sau this figure was low. "The number doesn't reflect the reality, showing us that regulations haven't been carried out seriously," he said.

During this time, 918 leaders and their deputies were punished for lack of responsibility, leading to corruption in their departments. Only 118 cases were prosecuted.

Some units haven't been aggressive enough in the fight against corruption. The leaders were more concerned about covering up for their subordinates so that they could bask in glowing achievements.

Inspector General Phan Van Sau said the number of leaders punished for letting corruption run rampant in their areas of responsibility was still low. In many big cases, the leaders don't have to take any responsibility. After ten years, many localities still don't know how to implement simple anti-corruption measures.

The inability to recover lost money is also a major problem. Uncovered cases of corruption caused losses of VND59.7trn (USD2.7bn) and 400 hectares of land over a decade. However, the government has only been able to recover VND4.7trn (USD213m) and 219 hectares of land.

In addition, the Government Inspectorate, the Supreme People's Procuracy and the Ministry of Public Ministry still don't co-operate sufficiently well.

Dtinews