VietNamNet Bridge - According to the HCM City People's Council, people are upset at the state of rampant construction of illegal houses in the city, and they were more discontent when a lot of two-storey houses were built without licenses and were not detected by building inspectors.

Director of the Construction Department – Mr. Tran Trong Tuan answered questions of the delegates.

At the 10th session of the HCM City People’s Council last Friday, Director of the Construction Department Tran Trong Tuan was questioned about more than 600 houses that were illegally built on agricultural land in the communes of Vinh Loc, Binh Hung A, Binh Hung B in Binh Chanh District, and building inspectors did not discover them.

"Is there a cover up of the local government for the construction magnates? I checked and detected many two-storey houses being built, with piles of construction materials around. It is very absurd that building inspectors did not know about them to prevent illegal construction from the beginning,” a deputy named Tran Thi Tuyet Nhung questioned.

Chairwoman of the city People’s Council – Mrs. Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam said that when she met with voters, they asked her about illegal construction. They were upset when many big houses that were built illegally were neglected by building inspectors, but if a pile of sand appeared in front of their house, construction inspectors would immediately appear.

Mr. Tuan said, according to statistics, from January 1 through May 15 this year, construction inspectors discovered 1,117 cases of illegal construction of houses. The number rose to more than 1,500 cases during May 15 to June 30.

Tuan said the reason for the rampant illegal construction is owning to the issuance of the decree that puts an end to the operation of building inspectors at commune and district levels from May 15, 2013. At the same time, the restructuring of the building inspection forces under the new decree has made the number of building inspectors reduce from 3,000 to over 1,000.

However, Tuan did not deny corruption among building inspectors. For the violations in Binh Chanh District, he said that before May 15, when the new decree did not take effect yet, illegal construction cases accounted fro nearly 20 percent but after May 15, it rose to 47 percent. Tuan promised to put an end to this situation before August 2013.

Deputy Pham Thi Thanh Hien said that Tuan could not blame the issuance of the new decree for the situation in Binh Chanh District because before the decree took effect, illegal construction was already rampant there.

Tuan said some officials of Binh Chanh district were reprimanded. Most recently, Binh Chanh district police prosecuted a ward vice president and building inspectors for corruption related to construction activities.

Tran Cham