One hundred seventy-four past and present officials are implicated in an unfolding land scandal in Long An province, Tuoi Tre has reported. Government inspectors are preparing their report.
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Along this canal are plots of land illegally allocated to Long An province and district officials.< /> |
In 2005 Long An authorities punished many officials for irregularities in land distribution. The chief of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment – Nguyen Van Chung – was dismissed. Bui Duc So, former chairman and deputy Party Secretary of Thu Thua district, received a warning. Le Anh Thuy, chairman of Thu Thua district, was reprimanded.
The provincial chairman instructed Thu Thua district to revoke wrong land use right certificates and compensation.
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The Ministry of Public Security is investigating a $2.4 million misappropriation of public land by provincial and district officials in Long An province, which lies just south and west of Ho Chi Minh City.
In late 2003, the Government instructed the People’s Committee of Long An province to reclaim 1760 hectares of land to build the Long An – HCM City Waste Treatment Industrial Zone in Thu Thua district.
Competent agencies have since then discovered that hundreds of hectares of land in the tract were misappropriated many years ago by greedy officials, causing losses worth dozens of billion dong to the state budget.
Tuoi Tre reporters visited the site on March 14. It is still undeveloped. Over five years have passed since the day the project – planned as the nation’s biggest industrial waste treatment facility — was approved, but construction has not begun.
The local people said that in 1983, when the government implemented the policy to reclaim the Dong Thap Muoi wetlands, people from everywhere flocked to this region to clear land for farming. The criteria were quite clear: only people who were from the local area and prepared to commit to settle permanently and farm the land were eligible to receive one of the three hectare plots. Even so, according to Tuoi Tre’s informants, many district and provincial officials who didn’t do farm work and were not local people were granted several hectares of land each.
Further, from 1995 to 2003, some officials of the district Office of Natural Resources and Environment proposed to the Thu Thua district authorities to allocate agricultural land free of charge to 294 individuals who didn’t meet the aforementioned conditions, totaling nearly 820 hectares.
Of the 294 on the list, 174 were officials at district and province levels, who collectively were awarded more some 472 hectares. Inspections show that most of these people have left the land fallow or sold it to reap a profit.
In 2001, the local government implemented the central government’s policy of granting land use right certificates (which are de facto deeds of ownership – ed.) At that time, title was granted to the 1760 hectares of land in this area that was subsequently designated as the site for the Long An-HCM City waste treatment project). Although they knew clearly that the above 174 officials failed to meet the conditions for receipt of the land use right certificates, says Tuoi Tre, but some competent officials nonetheless pressed the Thu Thua district administration to grant the certificates to all of them.
At the center of this activity from 1995 to 2005 are said to be many officials of Thu Thua district, including Le Anh Thuy, its current chairman, Nguyen Van Phung and Bui Duc So, its former chairmen, and Nguyen Van Chung, the director of the district office of Natural Resources and Environment. These officials reportedly granted the certificates to many people without consulting the commune government and in flagrant disregard of regulations and required procedures. Among those who benefited by this extraordinary procedure were these very officials and members of their families. All aimed to profit from the impending condemnation of land for the waste treatment project.
After the government approved the Long An-HCM City waste treatment project, Thu Thua district set up a council on site clearance and compensation chaired by Le Anh Thuy (district vice chairman at that time). In early 2004, this council approved the plan to condemn 1602 hectares of land to build the waste treatment facility, using a compensation fund totalling of 220 billion dong ($11.9 million at the current exchange rate, and more at that time) provided by the state budget via the HCM City Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
Beginning in June 2004, the council compensated the people whose land was revoked to build the above project. According to data, by August 8, 2008, the council had paid over 190 billion dong to 613 claimants.
Regulations prohibit people who did not actually cultivate the condemned land to be compensated for the assets and crops on the land but nonetheless the compensation council paid over 42.7 billion dong to 174 officials who were not farming these parcels, plus compensation for crops and assets allegedly on the land. Among those who received compensation were the chairman and vice chairman of the compensation council and their families.
Local people told the Tuoi Tre reporters that many people left the land fallow and could not even say where their plots of land were located but they were still compensated. Some people who were granted land in 1995 and had left it fallow later hired workers to plant trees on the land to qualify for huge compensation.
According to the law, the local government should simply reclaim unused land without compensation. Instead they made sure every one was compensated. Included were payments totalling over 800 million dong to five people who could not produce the land use right certificates and nearly four billion dong to a businessman who bought 40 hectares of land from a state organization and in fact presented the land use right certificate issued in the name of the state organization (the law bans such a form of land transformation).
In late 2009, a working group of the Government Inspectorate began a comprehensive inspection of the Long An-HCM City waste treatment project. Inspectors will make the case clear and report in full to the Prime Minister.
VietNamNet/Tuoi Tre
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