Vietnam to reassign top government inspector as part of large-scale leadership reshuffle

Vietnam’s legislative National Assembly is expected to remove the government's top inspector next week and reallocate him to a different role, the latest move in a series of major personnel reshuffle that have taken place in the country this year.

Nguyen Hanh Phuc, the assembly's General Secretary, said at a meeting on Wednesday that Phan Van Sau will be relieved of his position as chief of the Government Inspectorate from October 20.

Sau, 58, is answerable directly to the Politburo, the Communist Party's decision-making body. The decision almost certainly means the Politburo has already selected a new job for him, which is likely to be a provincial Party leader, as part of the Communist Party's personnel rotation policy.

His successor is also likely to be a top provincial leader. 

Sau graduated from the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, one of the best technology schools in Vietnam. He led several companies in his hometown of An Giang Province further south before starting his political career there.

He served as An Giang’s Party chief between October 2010 and September 2015. He was then installed as deputy head of the Party’s Central Economic Committee until April 2016, before being picked as the government's chief inspector.

Transport Minister Truong Quang Nghia will also be stepping down from his post to take his latest role as the new Party chief of Da Nang, replacing Nguyen Xuan Anh who was fired last week for misconduct.

Nghia, 59, served as deputy Party chief of Da Nang, the third most important city in Vietnam after Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, between 2005 and 2010.

The National Assembly deputies, 90 percent of whom are Communist Party members, are scheduled to rubber stamp the personnel reshuffle that will include the appointment of the new Minister of Transport and Chief of the Government Inspectorate at its biannual session that opens later this month.

Vietnam has dismissed the Party leaders of two major cities this year as part of a massive corruption crackdown.

In May, Dinh La Thang was dismissed from his post in HCMC after a Party investigation accused him of “serious violations” when he was head of state energy giant PetroVietnam several years ago. Thang was replaced by Nguyen Thien Nhan, who was appointed as president of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, an umbrella organization of all Vietnam's political and social groups, in 2013.

Vietnam is in the midst of a sweeping anti-graft push spearheaded by Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong.

Speaking at the concluding session of a major meeting with 200 senior Communist Party members in Hanoi on Wednesday, Trong said the case of Nguyen Xuan Anh, the disgraced top leader of Da Nang, should serve as a “painful lesson” to remind all officials to “regularly fix, scrutinize and prevent ourselves from having materialistic temptations and ambitions”.

“Anyone who has dirt on their hands should voluntarily wash them now,” he said.