Party chief to continue fighting corruption, a ‘disease’ of power

Corruption is a problem that every country has to face all the time and what should be discussed is the scale of this problem, Communist Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong told the press soon after the closing ceremony of the 13th Party Congress Monday.

This problem is a "disease of people having power and once such people have lots of money in their hands, it could easy lead to group benefits and negativity.

"Sometimes I’m afraid that I have been talking way too much about this issue but I will keep doing it even when people hate me for it."

The 13th Communist Party Central Committee Sunday elected Trong, 77, for another five-year term as Party chief, his third consecutive tenure in that position.

In October 2018, he was elected State President, making history by becoming the nation’s first ever person to hold the top Party and state president post, following the death of President Tran Dai Quang due to serious illness.

A signature initiative of the Party chief has been a sustained anti-corruption campaign that has reached into the top echelons of the nation’s governing apparatus apart from business tycoons.

Chairing the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption since 2013, Trong reinforced the campaign in 2017 and has spearheaded it since. He said in 2018 that the nation’s fight against corruption was at an all-time high and called for efforts made at all costs to take it even further.

In 2019, he took the fight to the military, directing leaders to root out corrupt practices in managing and using its assets.

The campaign has seen several high-profile government officials, top military officers and business figures arrested and jailed for crimes including graft, money laundering and economic mismanagement.

Some of the high profile names include: former political star Dinh La Thang, who once worked as Minister of Transport and then Party leader of Ho Chi Minh City, Trinh Xuan Thanh, former general director of PetroVietnam Construction Corporation (PVC), Truong Minh Tuan and Nguyen Bac Son, former ministers of information and communications, and former colonel Dinh Ngoc He.

Trong said he could not imagine the millions of dollars that have been lost to corruption.

"The war to fight and prevent corruption will not stop, will not rest and have no restricted areas, no matter who it involves," he said, adding a long, arduous and drastic fight lay ahead. What has been done so far is achieve some degree of prevention and limiting of corruption, he said.

He said some people had been worried that if I get weak, this fight would also weaken. But, as the 13th Party Congress drew near, even top officials of big cities like Hanoi and HCMC could not escape, he said.

"Who doesn’t like money! But I say honor is the most noble thing; can we take money along when we die?"