Intended for impoverished families, rice relief for the central province of Quang Binh instead made its way into the house of a gold shop owner and many local officials.
The recent story of Tran Thi Thao, a gold shop owner in Quy Dat Town, Minh Hoa District, receiving 72 kilograms of relief-rice for owning agricultural land, has shocked many people.
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| 72 kilograms of relief rice distributed to Thao Dien Gold Shop. |
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| Many poor households didn\'t receive any rice for not owning agricultural land. |
Thao herself was very surprised, when she came to know who the rice was intended for. “My husband is a government official. Our family does have a piece of agricultural land, but we hardly use it. Selling gold is our main source of income. I didn’t know what the rice was for, I just simply accepted it when they distributed it to my family,” said Thao.
Thao said that she was told to collect the rice early to avoid rumours from her neighbours, and that from what she knew, many other wealthy families in town were also receiving rice from local authorities.
Lots of questions, few answers
The same story seems to have repeated itself in many other communes of Minh Hoa District.
Locals in Van Hoa 1 Hamlet, Hong Hoa Commune, Minh Hoa District, have yet to receive any reasonable explanation for why the rice, intended as relief for the poor and hungry rice farmers, had been wrongly distributed to many officials in the commune, to people who were not in need, including Dinh Duy Khanh, a judicial official.
In response to the questions, officials from the commune denied any wrongdoing. Cao Vien Binh, Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee for the commune said, “There is no way that could happen. As with the rice distribution, we made it public and let people voice their opinions should there be any problem. There’s no way we distributed rice to people who weren’t in need.”
However, when our DTiNews reporter asked to have a look at the list of people who have received rice relief, Binh refused to show it and said that the social policy officer, who was in charge of rice distribution-related matters, have gone to the Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs Division to run some errands.
To verify this information, we immediately called the division and they said the officer was not there. Binh tried to salvage the situation by handing us the list and said, “There must have been some misunderstanding here. It would be extremely unreasonable to distribute rice to people who have a regular income. Perhaps, Khanh’s family was having some difficulties, and the commune officials had decided that it was necessary to help.”
Skimming through the list, we realised that besides Khanh, many other people listed whose living condition was nowhere near poverty, had received about 18 kilograms of rice per person.
“Many households in the commune are not considered poor, but unexpected mishaps may have occurred in their family,” Binh said after he regained his composure, adding that he was disappointed at the carelessness shown by the commune officials.
In order to find out what kind of unexpected mishap occurred to these families, we decided to pay them a visit. It was hard to believe, when one of the households we visited, was of Cao Van Hoan, Chairman of this People’s Committee.
Discipline for those who are held responsible
It seems that this rice mis-distribution problem is also ongoing in other communes of Minh Hoa District, where many complaints have been sent to relevant authorities, asking for it to be solved and to discipline those who were held responsible.
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| Poor households received the same amount of rice as offcials in the commune. |
Tran Huu Dien, Vice Chairman of Minh Hoa District People’s Committee, said that he will investigate the matter and order commune officials to report to him about their situation. “We will hand out proper disciplinary actions to those responsible for the mishandling of the rice distribution,” Dien said, adding that it would be very difficult to retrieve the amount of rice that had been distributed.
Apparently, Minh Hoa District authorities and the Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs Division had written specific instructions on how the rice should be distributed, and in their opinons, the commune officials should be held accountable for having not followed the instructions.
However, the list and amount of rice being distributed to each commune that DTiNews was able to get from the district authorities, revealed that Quy Dat Town where people have the highest living standards in the district, had received the most amount of rice - 71 tonnes. On the contrary, many agricultural communes that suffered from harvest failure such as Hoa Phuc, Tan Hoa, had been disproportionately distributed rice.
Public opinion seems to think that if the district authorities and the Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs Division, had been more thorough and strict in their instructions, these outrageous stories would have not happened.