At the beginning, PM raised the question of the most outstanding achievements in inspection work over past five years and first five months of this year. He also requested a careful analysis of inspection sector, such as advantages and weaknesses, lessons learned, unsolved issues and their causes. Inspection issues should be paid attention in the coming time.

In the first 5 months of the year, more than VND 96,000 billion caused by economic violations were detected.

Government Inspector General Doan Hong Phong revealed that through inspection activities, the Inspection sector has made an important contribution in all preventing, detecting and handling corruption. On the one hand, inspection agencies have discovered and recommended to improve mechanisms, policies and laws that have loopholes, inadequacies and are not suitable for reality, which create opportunities for corruption, wastefulness; on the other hand, they promptly detected and recommended to deal with many violations. Particularly in the first 5 months of 2021, 1,646 administrative inspections and 35,614 specialized ones were conducted, whereby economic violations were detected with more than VND 96,061 billion and 1,589 hectares of land; and 269 units and agencies proposed to be administratively handled; 10 cases with 5 suspecteds transferred to the investigation agencies.

According to Mr. Doan Hong Phong, with the engagement of the whole political system, the situation of complaints and denunciations tends to decrease gradually (the number of complaints and denunciations lodged to proper authorities decreased by 40% compared to the same period last year); the rate of settlement of complaints and denunciations is high (85%).

The work of self-detection of corruption was paid attention, especially through inspection and settlement of complaints and denunciations. Inspection agencies at all levels have discovered 353 cases, 520 subjects with corrupt and corruption-related acts. Especially in 9 inspections conducted by GIV, under monitoring of the Central Steering Committee for Anti-corruption and direction of the Prime Minister.

However, the General Inspector acknowledged that the implementation of inspection plans in some units was still slow; there is overlapping phenomenon in inspection, examination and audit activities; conclusions of some cases are still be delayed; The implementation of inspection conclusions and recommendations, especially the rate of asset recovery, has changed positively but has not yet reached the set target.

In the coming time, the GIV will focus on inspecting areas prone to wrong-doings and corruption, selecting a number of issues and areas to conduct extensive thematic inspection in order to push socio-economic development, to carry out unscheduled inspection when having law-breaking signals.

Focus on inspecting sensitive areas which raised concern of corruption; well perform the protection of whistleblowers and those who join to fight against corruption, wastefulness and wrong-doings.

Currently, GIV is underway to formulating the draft Law on Inspection (reivsed) with the consulation of all ministries and relevant agencies before submitting to the Government and the Government Prime Minister.

Rearrangement of the inspection forces

In reviewing recent impressive results, Deputy Inspector General Tran Ngoc Liem mentioned some complicated cases that get much public concern such as AVG, Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel SJC. In his opinion, institutional building plays a crucial role. However, the regulations on post-inspection supervision are now outdated, with weak mechanism on handling of illegal assets.

It is hard to reach an inspection conclusion, it is much harder to implement such conclusion. “There exists overlap between inspection and audit activities.”

Deputy Inspector General Nguyen Van Thanh expressed worry that the forces of inspection officials are fragmented. There are 35.000 inspection officials working at 1.705 district-level inspectorates, and among 1.200 inspectorates under provincial departments, there are average 2 officials each. In the process of reviewing the Law on Inspection, GIV strongly recommended there should be a restructure of inspection agencies to merge into bigger ones.

According to Mr. Nguyen Hong Diep, Director General of the Central Board for Citizen Reception, the most impressive result was that the number of citizens visiting Central Headquarter of Citizen Reception markedly decreased (40% reduced in comparison with 2019). The most valuable lesson drawn was that, according to Mr. Diep, “taking people’s complaints as their own, taking people as their relatives”. He hopes that officials of the Central Board for Citizen Reception will be able to join with local leaders in dialogs to settle complaints. That may help reduce number of people come to lodge complaints at central agencies.

Along with highly appreciating results obtained by GIV, the Government Leaders stressed a valuable lesson for the inspection sector, which is the spirit of solidarity and cooperation. GIV should build its personnel with every person who are virtuous, talented, integrity, and brave.

The PM emphasized that inspection work serves for the development, “we conduct inspection in order to prevent, correct and fairly handle violations”.

Inspector has to preserve his integrity

At the end of working session, PM Pham Minh Chinh stated that GIV had obtained many positive results, with conclusions of many important cases such as AVG. The results contributed greatly to the country’s anti-corruption work, consolidating people’s trust in the Party and State, and contributed to the success of the 13^th National Party Congress, on the success of the election of deputies to the 15^th Tenure National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels for the term 2021-2026.

With regard to shortcomings and limitations, the Prime Minister pointed out, legal regulations in inspection sector are still inadequate, overlapping, and sometimes inconsistent. The organization of inspection system is decentralized. Functions, duties and powers of inspectorates need to be improved.

The Prime Minister pointed out three reasons of achievements. First, GIV stuck to Party’s guidelines and policies, the direct and regular direction of the Politburo, the Secretariat, the Government and the Prime Minister; the second is the solidarity, consensus and determination of GIV’s leaders and staff. Third, there is close coordination between GIV and central agencies as well as local authorities.

As for the cause of limitations, according to the Prime Minister, the inspection work is influenced by various factors and interest groups. The coordination of agencies is sometimes not good.

Lessons drawn, according to the Prime Minister, is that “it is impossible to do inspection without being clean and just”. Therefore, inspectors must be transparent, objective, and righteous and must put the public interests first. The second lesson is the close leadership and direction of the Government and the Prime Minister. “There must be the solidarity and unity in leadership. Personnel work must be democratic, public, transparent and objective”.

In the work of inspection, every case should irrevocably finish on time. Concluded cases must be implemented in reality for the inspection work to gain effect. Those who receive citizen must be patient, brave and objective. Dialogues with citizens has to take place at the grassroots in the manner of openness, transparency, fairness and in compliance with law and regulations. Stress should be laid on the work of internal inspection, “inspection of the inspector”, otherwise it is easy for “compromise” to happen.

The Prime Minister emphasized that we inspect to serve development, "we inspect to prevent, to deter, to correct, to handle fairly before the law".

Considering that inspection plays a very important role in the current stage, the Prime Minister stated that inspection is a method of leadership of the Party, a tool for the exercise of socialist democratic rights, for the building of the socialist state of law, developing a socialist-oriented market economy.

Don't let small mistakes accumulate into big ones

In giving guidelines, the Prime Minister asked the inspection sector to promote the recent achievements “so that in the coming time we will do better”.

Second, it is necessary to identify and overcome the limitations, shortcomings, backlogs.

“Inspection is a difficult, complicated and sensitive work, so we must stick to the principles, implement democracy, promote collective intelligence, uphold efficiency and unity in action”, said the Prime Minister.

The third, the inspector must be brave, determined in action. There should be priorities in work.

The fourth, we must have a good command of stick to guidelines and policies of the Party, the laws of the State.

The fifth is decentralization and delegation of duties, “Ones should be in charge of what they can do best”.

Sixth, preventive work is still basic, strategic, long-term, and decisive.

Setting a number of specific tasks, the Prime Minister suggested, first of all, to perfect the institution. We must review what is lacked in institutions, mechanisms and policies, what is not suitable to reality. Regulations that are clear and effectively implemented, proven to be practical will be promoted; issues that are not yet regulated or beyond the regulations, should be regulated gradually.

Inspection is prevention. We inspect to prevent small mistakes from accumulating into big ones. It is necessary to strengthen inspection management, post-inspection handling, and step-up supervision and evaluation. Efforts should be placed on large-scale inspection, but with key focus. We also need to review and select specific cases to resolve them completely.

Complaint and denunciation cases should be resolved in a timely and lawful manner. During the process, stress should be placed on the work of reconciliation. Heads of Party committees and authorities at all levels must have regular dialogues with the citizen.

The Prime Minister noted to review and draw lessons from handling high-profile cases in the past term to contribute to promoting the prevention of corruption, especially in areas such as land and finance, mineral resources, public investment, areas prone to wrong-doings, etc...

The Prime Minister also emphasized to strengthen coordination between inspection work and the supreme supervision of the National Assembly, between inspection and state audit, between GIV and local inspectorates to avoid overlapping.

The Prime Minister ask to attach importance to the work of building a clean and strong Party; improve the leadership capacity and strength of Party organizations and party members in the inspection sector; building a lean, effective and efficient apparatus. It is equally important to build a strong workforce, especially the head, with full quality, capacity and prestige, on par with the tasks. Selection of cadres must be open, transparent, democratic, objective, and properly evaluated, especially during the process of recruitment. The Prime Minister also noted that GIV should do better in information and propaganda work.