Presentation by OSCAC at the Video Conference Discussion on June 18th 2010 at the World Bank Office in Vietnam I. Vietnamese agencies with functions of corruption prevention and combat: At present, there are the following Vietnamese agencies in charge of corruption prevention and , namely: the Inspectorate, State Audit, Investigation, the Procuracy; the Central Steering Committee and the Office of the Central Steering Committee for AntiCorruption. Vietnam has 3 agencies specializing in anti-corruption, namely the Department of Anticorruption under the Government Inspectorate, the Police Department on Corruption Investigation under the Ministry Police (an investigation agency) and the Department of Public Prosecution rights and Investigation of Corruption Cases under the Supreme People’s Procuracy. The Central Steering Committee and the Office of the Central Steering Committee for Anti-corruption (OSCAC) are responsible for directing, coordinating, checking, and supervising anti-corruption activities in the whole country, including: directing, coordinating, checking, and supervising agencies, organisations and units in developing policies on anticorruption and implementing policies on anti-corruption, including detection and handling of corruption cases. The Central Steering Committee has 10 members, namely: 1. The Prime Minister – Chairman; 2. One Deputy Prime Minister – Vice Chairman; 3. One Standing member cum Head of the Office of the Central Steering Committee; 4. Minister of Public Security 5. Chief Inspector of the Government Inspectorate; 6. President of the Supreme People’s Procuracy; 7. Chief Judge of the Supreme People’s Court; 8. Minister of Information and Communication; 9. One Vice Chairman of the Central Inspection Committee; 10. One Vice Minister of National Defense 1 II. Operation of the Central Steering Committee and the Office of the Central Steering Committee for Anti-corruption The Central Steering Committee and the Office of the Central Steering Committee for Anti-corruption are responsible for directing, coordinating, checking, and supervising agencies, organisations and units in anti-corruption activities, and not engaged in activities of inspecting, investigating, prosecuting, and holding court trials for corruption acts. The Central Steering Committee and the Office of the Central Steering Committee for Anti-corruption monitor and check upon the anti-corruption activities of agencies, organisations, units and localities, and identifying those that are slow to implement regulations/provisions or that do not comply with regulations, those that face difficulties or problems in anti-corruption in order to provide them with directions and urge them to take prompt actions in complying with provisions of laws; coordinate the activities of different anticorruption agencies and the activities of anti-corruption agencies with those of other agencies and organisations. The main mechanism of the Central Steering Committee for coordination of enticorruption activities is through members of the Central Steering Committee who are leaders of agencies with functions of anti-corruption. These members proactively propose the needs of their agencies for coordination/collaboration with other agencies and are responsible for organising the implementation of the decisions of the Chairman of the Central Steering Committee in the agencies of which they are leaders. III. Monitoring and supervision of anti-corruption activities In Vietnam, the tools for assessing corruption and for anti-corruption remain limited in number and not concrete. Assessment of corruption and anti-corruption in the whole country is largely based on the following 5 criteria: (1) based on the results of anti-corruption, including results of prevention, detection and handling of corruption acts; (2) based on assessment of ministries, central agencies, localities and competent agencies; (3) based on results of socioeconomic development; (4) based on results of public opinion surveys; (5) referring to the results of assessments by some foreign agencies and international organisations. Assessing by the 5 criteria as mentioned above is rational in certain ways, however, because these five criteria are not made concrete yet and so it’s difficult to use them and assessment results are heavily dependent on the subjective views of the assessors. Therefore, such a way of assessing is not persuasive. IV. Current efforts of Vietnam in Anti-corruption 2 Like other countries, Vietnam attaches great importance to both prevention and combat of corruption and to dealing with corruption acts. In the long run, prevention will be the main measure. However, at the present time, when corruption is quite serious, the functional agencies of Vietnam are now concentrating more on detecting and dealing with corruption cases. In order to meet this requirement, Vietnam has been strengthening the organisational structures and operations of agencies engaged in inspection, investigation, prosecution, holding court trials, and of steering committees for anti-coruption at central and local levels. Vietnam is also implementing the National Strategy for Anti-corruption up to 2020 and implementing the United Nations Convention on Anti-corruption with a huge work load and on a large scale. V. Some areas in which Vietnam needs support - Support to and collaboration with functional agencies of Vietnam in detecting and investigating cases of fraud or corruption in business involving international elements (recently, the WB and some foreign functional agencies have provided Vietnam with information about some foreign companies committing frauds in procurement and contract signing with some Vietnamese agencies, organisations and companies as well as about some Vietnamese organisations and individuals committing frauds in signing contracts with foreign agencies, organisations and companies). - Development of the criteria for assessing and measuring corruption and anticorruption (Vietnam is now conducting research and developing such criteria). - Support to Vietnam by sharing experiences in implementation of the United Nations Convention on Anti-Corruption. 3 4