HANOI: Vietnam’s top leader vowed to extend “for the long-term” an anti-corruption campaign that has had a chilling effect on the country’s economy, after police revealed financial scandals in the real estate sector worth more than 3 per cent of its gross domestic product.
The campaign against graft has been underway since 2016, but gained momentum last year after authorities in the communist-ruled country cracked down on several high-profile frauds and corruption cases involving top corporate executives and high-ranking state officials.
“We need to conduct the anti-corruption fight faster in a more efficient manner,” Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong said on Wednesday (Nov 22), state media reported late that day.
“We won’t stop here, but will continue for the long term,” he said.
Trong’s remarks came after the police announced the outcome of months-long investigations into two financial scandals, revealing for the first time the scale of the fraud, worth a combined US$12.8 billion, or 3.2 per cent of the economy.
In the biggest of the two scandals, Truong My Lan, chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, and her accomplices embezzled 304 trillion dong (US$12.54 billion) from Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank, according to the investigation, the outcome of which was published on Sunday.
The case was widely publicised when Lan was arrested in October last year which led to a crisis in the real estate sector and the market for corporate bonds, which she has been accused of issuing illegally in large amounts.