The budget allocation story is one that we’ve dissected many times, with many different facets. For a long time, the Communist Party has not considered taking care of the people’s welfare as their responsibility, which is why the Ministry of Public Security enjoys a budget of up to VND100 trillion ($4.3 billion), while the figures for health and education very low. The budget for the Ministry of Education and Training only accounted for 6.25% compared to the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Health only accounted for 7.4% of the police’s spending.
With huge budget, the Ministry of Public Security exhorts “defending the Fatherland” but in fact, they do not protect the Fatherland at all, they only care about the political monopoly of the Party. About a budget of VND100 trillion is a mountain of money, it is an opportunity for police officials to corrupt.
Along with the increase in the budget is the phenomenon of general inflation. This shows that the flies are smelling the sweet nectar of $4.2 billion, which gather to divide. From that place of gathering together, they draw up projects based on which to reap the rewards, which is a common way of corruption in this government apparatus. Regardless of the isector, it is still drawing projects, making policies to support the backyard, etc… to make a profit.
The arrest and search of the house of Major General, former Director of Hai Phong City Public Security, revealed a magnificent mansion, which partly showed the aggressive nature of public security officials. The bureaucrats in every branch find their own way in one way or another, but in the public security sector, it is more terrible, because it is given a huge state budget.
Arms sales contracts are lucrative deals, from the Ministry of National Defense to the Ministry of Public Security. However, the budget for investment in weapons for the police is not as large as the budget of this type for the Ministry of National Defense, while the number of the police force is larger than that of the Ministry of National Defense, so they also try to draw out a project to withdraw all VND100 trillion.
The principle of corruption is to have projects because no one can get straight into the VND100 trillion. And that is the reason why the Ministry of Public Security is racing to make useless projects. Last year, the Ministry of Public Security built a monument to soldiers of traffic police, fire prevention and rescue, at Thong Nhat park, Hanoi, inaugurated on July 17, 2022. Learning from experience, the Ministry of Public Security does not announce the budget for erecting the monument, because if it were announced, it would make the society angry, because the Vietnamese people now know too much about the monumental projects of hundreds of billions and thousands of dollars. The actual costs are only 1, but sometimes they make proposal budget higher dozens of times so they can corrupt.
Last year they got last year’s budget package, this year they get this year’s budget package. This year’s budget package is higher than last year’s, so it is understandable to draw up useless projects.
On June 10, Dan Viet newspaper reported that the Ministry of Public Security was building a theater in the center of Hanoi. This work is called Ho Guom Theater, under the Department of Party and Political Work (Ministry of Public Security). The project is expected to be inaugurated in July 2023. Like last year’s monument, the Ministry of Public Security did not disclose its budget, probably to avoid being cursed by people and also to avoid being exposed this is a project designed to extort money from the budget.
Minister To Lam is a brutal minister who does not know how to respect the law, and it is believed that he is very good at “family economy.” Those police officers who want to get promoted should know to bribe Colonel To Long. With two terms as the leader of the ministry receiving an annual state budget of $4.2 billion, Minister To Lam knows how to make useless projects which help him to get huge amount of money from the state investment for his own pocket.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
