[VN News] Sophisticated graft on rise in Vietnam

["DiemQuynh Nguyen" <diemquynhng@hotmail.com>]

Sophisticated graft on rise in Vietnam

Reuters.
Tuesday - Nov 30, 1999
Sophisticated graft on rise in Vietnam

HANOI, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Corruption among Vietnamese officials has become 
increasingly sophisticated this year, but courts have meted out tough 
penalties, the country's top judge said.

Trinh Hong Duong, chief justice of the Supreme People's Court, said courts 
had heard 526 graft cases involving more than 1,100 government officials and 
businessmen in the first nine months of the year, official media reported on 
Tuesday.

The Vietnam News daily quoted Duong as telling delegates of the National 
Assembly that the number of corruption cases was similar to the same period 
in 1998, but that graft had become more sophisticated and organised.

A major problem was that government officials were now colluding with
businessmen, Duong said without elaborating.

A total of eight death sentences and 13 life terms had been handed down in 
the first nine months of the year for graft offences, Duong added. He gave 
no comparative figures.

Six of those death sentences were delivered last August during the country's 
biggest corruption trial, which revolved around shady transactions at two 
firms that caused losses of $280 million to the state.

Vietnam's top leaders regularly rail at the prevalence of official graft, 
but campaigns to deal with the menance are viewed with scepticism by the 
country's 79 million people.

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