Nearly 96 trillion dong ($4.16 billion) and 772ha of land were found to be involved in economic violations uncovered by Vietnam’s Government Inspectorate in the first quarter of this year.

The agency made recommendations to collect more than five trillion dong of the reported sum to the state’s budget.

The Government Inspectorate is a ministry-level agency that performs state administration of inspection, citizen reception, complaint and denunciation settlement and anti-corruption throughout the country.

Reports released on April 15 showed that inspectors conducted 1,644 administrative inspections and 35,614 specialised inspections and examinations in the first three months of this year.

They issued 18,911 decisions to tackle administrative violations with total fines of 992 billion dong. As many as 269 organisations and collective units were recommended to be fined.

The inspectors transferred documents about 10 cases and five people for further investigation.

In the first quarter of this year, the Government Inspectorate also issued 3,063 papers that helped fix or improve documents on salary and benefits regimes.

After conducting more than 400 inspections relating to salary and benefits regimes, inspectors found 36 violations and recommended compensation of nearly 25 billion dong to affected people.

As many as 1,118 state officials and employees were moved to other positions to prevent possible corruption.

The inspectors also found seven leaders of organisations lacked responsibility, which resulted in corruption.

Inspectors also worked with other agencies, ministries and localities to boost anti-corruption/anti-waste communication. More than 284,400 state officials and employees attended more than 6,600 training classes

on anti-corruption. Nearly 61,000 books and materials on anti-corruption regulations were published.

According to the Government Inspectorate, for the rest of this year, the agency will concentrate on unannounced inspections.

During the inspections, as soon as any sign of criminal violation is found, the inspectors will transfer the case to investigative agencies for a timely resolution instead of waiting until the inspection is completed.

Besides planned inspections, the Government Inspectorate will timely inspect cases that the Central Committee on Anti-corruption or prime minister assigns.

VIET NAM NEWS/ASIA NEWS NETWORK