Corruption and wastefulness are a matter of major public concern. Last year, the National Assembly adopted the Anti-corruption Law, which will come into force on June 1, 2006. The law is considered a legal tool for the whole Party and people to intensify the fight against corruption.

During the past few years, many corruption cases featuring sly tricks and acts of wastefulness were detected by the press and both corrupt individuals and collectives have been prosecuted by legal agencies. However, a number of corruption cases in recent times have involved new tricks.

An example of such behaviours can be seen in organising birthdays, weddings or house warming parties. Last year, a local authority from southern Vinh Long province used an approaching overseas business trip as a pretext for holding a feast for all local staff. Great feasts are often associated with envelopes. For the same purpose, director of the Planning and Investment Department in southern Binh Thuan province asked a commune Party leader to hold a big party for 300 guests. Obviously, this was a trick to collect money envelopes from some local officials.

In fact, corruption is still a common occurrence with new tricks, which are very difficult to root out as recently uncovered under major capital construction investment projects. The football match-fixing case of Project Management Unit (PMU) 18 from the transport sector is also a case in point.

A State official gave private companies the green light to win bids and afterwards slipped State money into individuals and bidding appraisers’ pockets.

As a result, MPU 18 allowed the construction of a low-quality road section on National Highway No 2. The football match-fixing case by the MPU 18 manager is currently being investigated by legal agencies.

Money was transferred to authorised people to facilitate bid-winning projects and some officials purchased luxurious cars for the alleged purpose of serving the projects. However, the purchases were made by "close" people not involved in the project management. Hundreds of vehicles were bought and the amount of money spent on buying cars reached tens of billions of VND for each project. Nobody knows exactly how much money corrupt officials spent on fixing football matches in a short period of time. The sum was equivalent to the money contributed by the Vietnam Fatherland Front, social organisations and philanthropists to build charity houses for the poor in the whole year.

The Anti-corruption Law will become effective soon. The draft political report to be submitted to the 10^th National Party Congress will also deal with issues on corruption and wastefulness prevention.

Many people from all walks of life and State employees have expressed their wish that the Party and State strictly deal with those who are charged with corruption and wastefulness behaviours.

Party members involved in corruption and wastefulness cases should be expelled from  the Party organisation. Those who are found guilty of corruption and wastefulness should be punished in accordance with the Anti- corruption Law.