Do not let dishonest officials in asset declarations slip through the cracks.

Recently, while chairing the first meeting of the Personnel Subcommittee of the 14th Party Congress, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong affirmed that personnel preparation is “extremely important”. The General Secretary pointed out many requirements for Party personnel, including emphasizing that “those who do not declare their assets truthfully, show signs of getting rich quickly, have many houses, lands, and other assets without clearly explaining their origins; who themselves or their spouses, or children have an exemplary lifestyle, and take advantage of their positions to gain illegal profits” should not be allowed into the 14th Central Executive Committee.

Recently, many officials holding high positions, when disciplined and prosecuted, have revealed their fraudulent behavior and large amounts of assets of themselves and their families. Typically, before being temporarily detained at the end of 2023 to investigate the crime of "Taking advantage of position and power to influence others for personal gain", in early October 2023, Mr. Le Duc Tho, then a member of the Party Central Committee and Secretary of the Ben Tre Provincial Party Committee, was removed from all positions in the Party due to dishonest explanations of the origin of his assets. In the case of former Director of Hai Phong City Police Do Huu Ca being arrested for "Fraudulent appropriation of property", during the search of the residence of the accused Do Huu Ca, the authorities discovered over 40 land use right certificates along with a large amount of money, gold, foreign currency, jewelry, savings books... in the name of Mr. Ca's wife and other individuals. The above cases partly show that the regulations in managing, controlling, and verifying the assets and income of officials still have "loopholes" for dishonest people to "slip through".

Reality also shows that the work of verifying assets and income still has certain limitations. This work has not really received attention from agencies, units and localities in the past, so through verification, there are still many cases of not fully understanding the regulations and declaring incorrectly. Propaganda, training and guidance on declaring assets and income are difficult due to the large number of people who have to do it. Currently, information on assets and income of officials depends mainly on the self-awareness of the declarant. Verification mainly stops at whether the declaration is correct and honest or not, while the problem lies in verifying the origin of the assets of officials, the origin of assets of relatives in the family...

In one locality in the province, there was a case of an official declaring his assets as valuable real estate given to him by his mother. However, in reality, the official's mother was elderly, had never participated in production or business activities, or had a stable source of income.

Currently, Party committees and authorities at all levels are implementing the verification of assets and incomes of officials and people who are obliged to declare. Along with proposing and recommending the completion of regulations to improve the quality and effectiveness of this work, the verification, control and verification of assets and incomes of officials require close and regular coordination of relevant agencies. Strengthen and improve the effectiveness of inspection, examination and supervision of the implementation of declaration and control of declaration and disclosure of assets and incomes, and at the same time strictly handle agencies, organizations and individuals who violate...

One of the important solutions is to promote the supervisory role of mass organizations, social organizations, press agencies and people in declaring assets and controlling assets and income of officials, especially leaders and key officials.