Official graft found in troubled Vietnam province
12:40 a.m. Aug 16, 1997 Eastern

By Adrian Edwards

HANOI, Aug 16 (Reuter) - An official Vietnamese
newspaper on Saturday said serious abuses of
education fees and taxes had been found in a
northern province stricken in recent months by some
of the country's worst known unrest.

In a frank and detailed admission of official
graft, the Lao Dong (Labour) newspaper said
prosecutors in Thai Binh province had uncovered
evidence that fees collected from schoolchildren
were being used by officials for partying and
holidays.

``On average each school collects 12 to 15 kinds of
fees,'' it said. ``They have many fees which are
not in line with regulations...for example labour
fees, hygiene fees, security fees and so on.''

Both district and province level education
departments were found to have siphoned off money
for a variety of purposes including travel, hosting
guests, office celebrations and paying cash bonuses
to officials, it said.

``They also used money to upgrade technical tools,
to use them for their own purposes,'' the article
added.

Thai Binh province lies about 50 miles (80 km)
southeast of Hanoi, in an area of Vietnam viewed
historically as the cradle of its communist
revolution.

Trouble surfaced there earlier this year when
thousands of people converged on the province
capital to protest grievances including alleged
official graft and new tax demands.

Reports from the area, which has been kept
off-limits to foreign journalists, say the
situation turned violent in May and June.

The homes of several officials were burnt down and
government workers and their families were
evacuated after at least one was beaten.

Police and military reinforcements were sent in to
restore order, but the situation is reported still
tense. Details, including the number of casualties,
remain difficult to come by.

Rural unrest is considered a significant concern
for Vietnam's communist government, which derives
its traditional support from a farming peasantry,
who make up around 80 percent of the country's 77
million population.

In addition to the troubles in Thai Binh incidents
have been reported in recent months in at least one
other northern province.

Vietnam's foreign ministry announced recently that
the authorities were taking steps to stabilise the
situation, which it blamed on ``untransparent''
financial activities involving low-level officials,
whom it said would be punished.

Since then the government has also announced
measures to boost rural incomes and breathe new
life into a system of farmers' cooperatives, which
largely disappeared following the launch of
free-market economic reforms in 1986.

Diplomats in Hanoi say the problem has presented
Vietnam's leadership with a critical and sensitive
question of how it should tackle such issues
without alienating segments of its own population.

The Lao Dong report is one of few in Vietnam's
state-controlled media to have referred, albeit
indirectly, to the problem. It made no mention of
disturbances in Thai Binh or elsewhere.news