Capital's poor to get VND240b for Tet

Ha Noi will spend nearly VND240 billion (US$11.5 million) in presents for those on social welfare, the elderly, and retired and disavantaged families for the coming Tet (Lunar New Year) holiday.

The presents will be worth VND500,000 ($24), VND300,000 ($14) or VND200,000 ($9) each.

Illegal loggers fell pine forest in Gia Lai

Hundreds of pine trees planted in 1998 in Dak Doa Forest, central highland Gia Lai Province, have been illegally cut down, according to the Dak Doa District Forest Management Unit.

The theft was believed to have been carried out last month.

Do Van Hung, who was in charge of protecting the trees, said that he was not responsible for protecting the trees at night, when the thieves struck. Police are investigating.

Taxi firms banned for overcharging customers

Petrolimex and Festival taxis have been banned from operating at Tan Son Nhat Airport for overcharging passengers and other violations, Ministry of Transport deputy chief inspector Thach Nhu Sy said.

A ministry inspection also revealed the operators had no contract with drivers and vehicle colours did not match registrations. The operators were fined VND7.5 million (US$360) each for the colour violations.

Meanwhile, about 75 Sai Gon Tourist Taxi logos have been confiscated after it was found they were being illegally transferred to other taxis.

Christmas greetings offered by leaders

Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan yesterday, Dec 22, visited the Thai Binh Bishop, dignitaries and followers to give her greetings for another prosperous and peaceful Christmas season.

At the Thai Binh Bishop's office, Doan emphasised the progresses made by Thai Binh Province in all areas and the contributions made by the religious community.

On behalf of the parishioners, Bishop Nguyen Van De thanked the government and party officials and said the bishop would continue its work in uniting members of the community and implementing all the policies of the Government and the party.

The Vice President also gave presents to 10 families facing economic difficulties.

Yesterday, Dec 22, president of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Huynh Dam visited Thanh Hoa Bishopric and Archbishop Nguyen Chi Linh on the occasion of Christmas.

Dam commended the bishop on its social activities, participation in programmes launched by the Fatherland Front and contributions to the national great unity bloc.

Dam affirmed the Party and State always created favourable conditions for all religions to develop in line with regulations of the Constitution and laws.

Archbishop Linh said Bishopric Thanh Hoa would continue upholding the tradition of solidarity and making contributions to socio-economic development and national construction and defence.

Cop demoted over hit-and-run case

Police Captain Le Quang Binh of Binh Duong Province, who drove a car under the influence and hit a man on a motorbike causing his death in October, has been demoted to the rank of lieutenant, the provincial police department said.

The demotion was announced yesterday after the department held a meeting to review his case and discuss disciplinary actions against him.

The department also demanded that Hung be discharged from the police force.

Binh, 36, deputy head of a social order research team, had earlier been suspended after causing an accident that killed 28-year-old Nguyen Huu Quan, a local.

At 7 pm October 20, Binh was driving a car in Phu Hoa Ward when he hit Quan’s motorbike hard, flinging the rider to the ground.

Even with the motorbike getting stuck underneath, Binh did not stop but speeded away, dragging the motorcycle along.

Other riders on the road who witnessed the accident chased after him and finally stopped him in Thuan An town, nearly five kilometers away.

Quan, 28, was first taken to a local hospital and then to Cho Ray Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City but the doctors failed to save him. He died from severe brain injuries.

In his report on the accident, Binh said he had drunk some beer earlier and had fled the scene out of sheer panic. The car belongs to an acquaintance of his.

Health centres fail to meet standards

The ministry carried out a review of communal health care centres based on standards set 10 years ago to raise the quality of services and to get more funding for the centres.

The offending centres lacked medical equipment, doctors and preferential policies for their staff, said Nguyen Hoang Long, deputy head of the ministry's Finance and Planning Department.

Poor medical hygiene and low-quality reproductive health care services were also on the list, he said.

The centres were mainly located in mountainous and remote areas, where low economic conditions was holding them back, Long said.

Luong Cong Sy, director of northern mountain Lao Cai Province's Health Department, said traditional practices and customs of local residents were another reason the centres failed to meet the ministry's requirements.

Nevertheless, the introduction of standards had prompted provinces and cities to pay attention to communal health centres by pouring in more financial resources over the years, the ministry said.

This had improved the quality of health care services from grass-roots level, helping to reduce the burden on upper-level centres.

Nearly 75 per cent of more than 11,000 communal health centres had reached the ministry's criteria.

To tackle problems facing centres in highland regions, the ministry said it had issued a set of new criteria for the next 10 years.

The new list was based on the old one but with higher requirements such as standards on professional skills for doctors, health insurance rates among patients and health education information.

Social insurance debt up in August

In August, the total social insurance debt throughout the country reached more than VND4.6 trillion (US$219 million), a Social Insurance Agency conference was told here on Wednesday.

Seventy per cent of the debt was incurred by non-State enterprises and foreign invested enterprises.

The Social Insurance Agency attributed the debt to the light penalties for employers who failed to set aside insurance funds - and lack of official supervision.

16,000 poor children to get free milk

Sixteen thousand children of poor families around country will get free milk every day in a campaign by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to reduce malnutrition.

The VND7 billion (US$333,000) campaign, launched on Wednesday by the ministry's National Fund for Vietnamese Children, will last a year with every child getting two cartons of milk every day for two months.

The campaign will begin at the start of next year on Ly Son Island in central Quang Ngai Province.

One in every three Vietnamese children under five is stunted with low consumption of milk being one of the reasons for the high malnutrition rate.

The campaign began in 2008 with the support of the Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company (Vinamilk), and has benefited nearly 300,000 children.

Worker caught forging EVN documentation

Ha Noi police have arrested a worker at Dong Anh Electric Company for forging a signature to get VND10 billion (US$467,000), according to senior lieutenant-colonel Phan Cao Thu, head of the Ha Noi Police.

The worker, Pham Quang Ha, 30, told police he offered to secure jobs for others at Ha Noi's Electricity for a VND80 million application fee. He had received more than 90 job application documents with nearly VND10 billion ($467,190) since last October.

In order to look genuine, Ha falsified Ha Noi's Electricity job vacancy announcements with signatures and stamps and sent them to job candidates upon receiving their application forms.

The job seekers were alerted to the fraudulent activity when they checked with EVN in Ha Noi in July.

Charity donates oxen to poor households

More than 5,890 oxen, worth VND41 billion (US$1.95 million), were given to poor households in 69 poorest districts throughout the country, according to the Viet Nam Red Cross on Wednesday.

One fourth of the money was raised through a mobile phone text messaging programme which was launched in June last year.

Under the project, farmers were also advised on how to raise the oxen. The project will continue next year.

Chile donates US$15,000 to flood victims

The Chilean government has presented US$15,000 to help people who are vulnerable to flooding in Mekong Delta. 

Chilean ambassador Fernando Urrutia said in Hanoi on December 22 that the gift shows the friendship, solidarity and deep sympathy towards the Chilean Government and people’s feeling of Vietnam, especially people in the Mekong Delta.

 President of Vietnam Red Cross Tran Ngoc Tang, who is responsible for distributing the donation, said during the two months of September and October, the floods caused damages worth VND1 trillion, badly affecting the lives and health of people in the southern provinces of An Giang, Dong Thap and Long An. 

The Vietnam Red Cross has received around US$2.3 million in relief aid from many countries, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and businesses, he said.

HCMC ward implements fingerprinting system

In an effort to facilitate administrative interaction between citizens and local authorities, the Ben Thanh Ward People’s Committee, in District 1, has put into operation a personal information management system based on fingerprints.

Accordingly, everybody who makes their first visit to the committee to carry out administrative procedures will have their essential personal information, including full name, age, gender, address, ID number, and fingerprint pattern recorded in the system.

When they return, they will simply press their forefingers against a device and all their stored information will be displayed on a computer screen that is connected to the device.

They will then be instructed to complete other tasks, for example, filling out forms required for their cases according to prevailing regulations.

The committee said the system frees citizens from bringing any papers with them when they come to deal with the authorities.

The system will first be applied for three fields, namely judicial and civil status work, land and house issues, and certification and notarization, before it will be implemented for other fields, the committee said.

The committee said it has recorded the personal information of about 16,000 out of the ward’s 18,000 residents over the age of 18, and is continuing to do the same for the remaining 2,000, and then for people under 18.

The information stored in the system will be updated based on residents’ declarations about changes to their personal information.

The new administrative management system will help shorten the time it takes to carry out administrative work and cut costs, the committee said.

Ministry inspects salaries at power group EVN

An inspection team is looking into salary issues at the Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN) after the company announced a huge accrued loss of VND40 trillion (US$1.9 billion), while the State Audit Agency has reported that the group has paid its staff salaries as high as VND7.9 -10.3 million ($376-490) per month.

“The team is performing its duties and the ministry will urge it to step up its work in order to come to a conclusion on whether something was wrong in EVN’s salary payment as soon as possible,” said Pham Thi Hai Chuyen, Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), who set up the team.

The results of the inspection will be publicly announced, she said.

She also emphasized that companies operating at a loss, like EVN, should not be able to pay high salaries or bonuses to their staff.

According to a report by the State Audit Agency, there are three average rates of salary at EVN - VND7.9 million per month for the electricity distribution sections; VND10.8 million for the power transmission units; and VND13.7 million, the highest, for staff working at the holding company.

The office staff at the holding company had an average income of about VND30 million per month, which was as twice as high as the overall average rate of the company.

Meanwhile, the average salary of an employee in State-owned enterprises last year was just VND3.8 million per month and that of a worker in textiles and garment companies was even lower, at VND2.1-2.3 million per month, Thanh Nien newspaper reported.

According to the General Statistics Office, the income per capita in Vietnam last year is US$1,168, or VND24.53 million, which means VND2.04 million per month.

Earlier, EVN general director Pham Le Thanh told the National Assembly in a meeting that “the average income for an employee at EVN is VND7.3 million per month, which is not enough for a normal person to live in an urban area.”

Another EVN official told the press that the payroll of EVN, as well as of other groups, must be approved by the MOLISA before it can be applied. He also said that the group has paid salary in accordance with the rates approved by the ministry.

For example, in 2009 the ministry approved EVN’s salary rate of VND5,720 per 1,000 kWh sold, he said.

Regarding the salary of EVN’s council of members and general director – seven people in total – the ministry also agreed to the 2009 salary fund of VND3.09 billion ($147,000) for them, and through such a fund, the general director and each member was paid VND36.7 million per month, the official said.

In 2010, the approved salary fund was 3.1 billion, and each executive received VND37 million per month, he said.

Bonuses for the council of members and the general director are also paid in accordance with relevant regulations, and must be reported to and supervised by the MOLISA and the Finance Ministry, he added.

VNN/VNS/Tuoi Tre