Pham Trong Dat, head of the Government Inspectorate Anti-Corruption Bureau has claimed that Vietnam's recent rankings on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index does not reflect the actual situation in the country.
Pham Trong Dat, head of the Government Inspectorate Anti-Corruption Bureau
"This information is just for reference," Dat told local media yesterday. "Transparency International did the studies and assessment in their own way, which are different from the way we do things here. Therefore, the results don't thoroughly explain the real corruption problems in Vietnam.
Vietnam ranked 112 out of 168 countries on the TI Corruption Perception Index 2015, improving seven places on last year, even though the country’s score remained at 31 on a scale from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), which remains unchanged over the last four years.
TI advised Vietnam to carry out measures including the declaration of assets, collection of stolen assets, punishment of violators and protection for whistle-blowers, as well as the participation of the whole of society.
Dat argued that Vietnam has recorded considerable achievements in the fight against corruption over recent years, but these were usually not recognised by many foreign organisations.
Last year, 705 officials were discovered to have been involved in corrupt practices. The inspectors proposed to recover VND756bn of stolen assets and over 6.3 hectares of land.
