【Text/Observer Network Wang Kaiwen Editor/Ma Xue】
Since December last year, a case of nucleic acid reagent corruption has sent Vietnam into a major earthquake.
A Vietnamese biotechnology company is accused of supplying nucleic acid testing kits across Vietnam at a 45 percent premium, with sales totaling VND 4 trillion (about 1.15 billion yuan). During this period, a large number of public officials were involved, from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam to the hospitals and centers for disease control and prevention in various places.
On June 7, more than 60 people involved in the case were prosecuted and arrested as police issued arrest warrants to Vietnam's former health minister, former mayor of Hanoi, and former deputy minister of science and technology.
In recent years, the Vietnamese government has vigorously fought corruption, especially since 2016, when general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trong opened his second term, a large number of officials have been dismissed every year.
Against this backdrop, such unbridled systemic corruption cases are still occurring during the pandemic. The number of fallen officials and the high number of positions are eye-popping. One wonders why so many officials still "defy the wind"?
In the view of Professor Zhao Weihua, deputy director of the Research Center for Relations between China and Neighboring Countries at Fudan University, Nguyen Phu Trong is indeed a leader who attaches great importance to anti-corruption, "he is determined and fruitful in anti-corruption work."
However, Cho pointed out that although Vietnam has arrested many people in recent years, Nguyen Phu Trong is still a "moderate anti-corruption" on the whole, and the punishment for corrupt officials is relatively low, which also leads to corruption incidents "going forward and following". Corruption is widespread in Vietnamese society, "the overall atmosphere is like this, it is not something that a leader can change in a short period of time, and there is still a long way to go." ”
Vietnam's former Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Thiệng (left), and former Chairman of the People's Committee of Hanoi City (equivalent to mayor) Zhu Yuying, they are the two highest-ranking officials in this case Image Source: Vietnamese online media "24h"
"Light of Vietnam"
Back in early 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread around the world, Vietnam's testing capacity was in short supply, and it relied almost entirely on nucleic acid test kits assisted by the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, putting great pressure on the prevention and control of the epidemic.
In this context, in February of that year, the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam approved a research project with a budget of 18.98 billion VND (about 5.467 million yuan), which was jointly developed by the Vietnam Military Academy and Viet A. (Viet A), hoping to produce "Made in Vietnam" with a low price.
According to Saigon Economic Online, Yueya was founded in 2007 with a registered capital of only VND 80 million (about 23,000 yuan). By October 2017, the company's registered capital had increased from VND 200 billion to VND 1,000 billion .00 billion.
In recent years, the cooperation between Yueya Company and Vietnamese officials has been very frequent. From 2016 to 2017, the company became a supplier of 175 military hospitals in Vietnam, providing drugs, chemicals and medical supplies. From 2018 to 2019, it won the bid for the procurement project of the Vietnam Central Dermatology Hospital, providing it with fungicides and testing instruments.
But during the period 2016-2019, Yueya's revenue and profits showed a downward trend until 2020.
Just one month after the development, the new crown Real-time RT-PCR and RT PCR test kit (hereinafter referred to as the Viet A kit) jointly developed by the Vietnam Military Medical College and The Vietnamese Company were approved for use by the Vietnamese health department. On March 5, the Ministry of Science and Technology of Vietnam held a press conference to announce the results of the kit, and Hu Yingshan, vice president of the Military Medical Research Institute under the Vietnam Military Medical College who led the research and development, said that the sensitivity and accuracy of the kit were comparable to the kits developed by WHO and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The birth of the Viet A kit made the whole country of Vietnam excited, and Pham Kung Zao, then vice minister of science and technology of Vietnam and now out of power, said at the time that this made Vietnam one of the few countries in the world that successfully developed a new crown pneumonia virus test kit. ”
At the same time, the Vietnamese media is also making a big publicity to promote the Viet A kit as "certified by THE WHO and the UK Ministry of Health".
Viet News Agency's promotional map of the WHO certification of the Viet A kit
With the "blessing" of WHO and the United Kingdom, for a time, Viet A kit became the "light of Vietnam", and the kit produced by Viet A was used on a large scale in Vietnam.
In March 2021, on the recommendation of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, where the company is located, Yueya Company was also awarded the Third Class Labor Medal by the Vietnamese government in recognition of its "outstanding achievements" in research and development.
Fall off the altar
In mid-2021, as the Delta strain ravaged the world, the number of confirmed cases in Vietnam soared, and the demand for nucleic acid testing also rose. At that time, in the Vietnamese market, the new crown test kit was not a hot commodity, and with the influx of products and imported kits from other Vietnamese companies, the price problem of Viet A kits gradually appeared.
Many Vietnamese companies and people have begun to report that the price of The Viet A kit is out of order and the cost of testing is too high. The official reference price for Viet A kits is VND 470,000 (about RMB135.4) per set, while the price for other Vietnamese domestic test kits of the same type ranges from VND 179,800 to VND385,000, and the price of imported products is between VND280,000 and 600,000.
An official from binh Duong's health department said nucleic acid test kits were lacking in the early stages of the outbreak and only Yueya could provide them. But later, they found that many kit manufacturers offered lower prices.
Subsequently, the relevant Vietnamese authorities intervened in the investigation. The Ministry of Health of Vietnam later pointed out that the premium of the nucleic acid reagent test kit of Yueya Company was serious and needed to be seriously dealt with.
On December 18, 2021, Pan Guoyue, chairman and general manager of Yueya Company, and several management company members were arrested. The survey showed that after Viet A obtained a circulation license, Yueya Company colluded with Vietnamese health officials to forge documents and exaggerate the cost of kit materials, raising the reference price of the kit by 45%.
Pan Guoyue, chairman and general manager of Yueya Company, Source: Vietnamese online media "24h"
By the time of Pan's arrest, the Viet A kit had been sold to 62 of Vietnam's 63 provinces and cities, with sales totaling VND 4 trillion .00 billion. Yueya made at least VND 500 billion (about 145 million yuan) from it.
Yueya executives later admitted that they had "taken full advantage" of the simplified bidding process given by the government in the context of the COVID-19 emergency.
In order to enable provinces and cities across the country to purchase their own products, Yueya also spent VND 800 billion (about 230 million yuan) to "communicate" with health departments and medical institutions at all levels.
For example, Fan Weixian, the head of the Hai duong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was accused of accepting a bribe of VND27 billion (about 7.79 million yuan) from Yueya Company, and the provincial CDC subsequently signed a contract with Yueya for the purchase of kits worth up to 151 billion VND (about 43.54 million yuan).
Screenshot of Vietnamese media reports
As the case surfaced, it was discovered that the Viet A kit didn't seem to be as "good" as previously advertised. Vietnamese media and even officials have claimed that "Viet A kits are certified by the World Health Organization", but the fact is that Viet A kits have only submitted applications to WHO and have not been included in the "Emergency Use List" (EUL).
A WHO report in October 2020 made it clear that viet A kits are not eligible for WHO procurement. Until April 2022, the Viet A kit remained on the LIST of "products not accepted by EUL" on the grounds that the application "fails to meet the documentation required for safety, performance and/or quality management system (QMS)".
A WHO report in October 2020 showed that Viet A kits were not on the emergency use list
As for the news of "being recognized by the British Ministry of Health and Social Security and issuing the European Standard CE Certification and Free Sale Certificate (CFS)", according to the British government website, as of June 9, 2022, the British Ministry of Health and Social Security approved 56 kinds of COVID-19 test products, which also does not include Yueya products.
After the "Yueya case" came to light, Vietnam's Ministry of Science and Technology deleted information on its website on December 20 about the WHO and UK certification of the Viet A kit. An official from the Ministry of Science and Technology admitted that the ministry "did not fully take into account WHO's feedback on The Company's kits at the time".
In addition, Yueya has always claimed that the origin of the kit is Ho Chi Min City and Binh Duong Province. However, after a field visit by the Vietnamese public security department, it was found that the headquarters in Ho Chi Minh City had only one signboard and no employees. The "factory" at its headquarters in Binh Duong is just a "room of more than 10 square meters".
Vietnamese media filmed Yueya company nucleic acid reagent test kit "factory"
Technicians in Binh Duong claim that they produce 30,000 kits a day, but Saigon Economic Online notes that the employees are only responsible for sub-assembling accessories and packing them into boxes, and they don't know where the raw materials are produced.
VnExpress, Vietnam's largest news portal, reported in January that Yueya had imported medical supplies and equipment worth about VND286 billion over the past five years. It is worth mentioning that from September to December 2021, Yueya imported 3 million boxes of NEW CROWN antigen test kits from China, costing a total of VND64.68 billion, with an average price of VND 21,500 (about 6.24 yuan) per box.
False publicity and humble factory buildings have led to questions about the effectiveness and accuracy of the Viet A kit. Wynn Huynh Tran, a Vietnamese-American doctor, told the BBC Vietnamese channel in December that Vietnam's ability to control and track the outbreak could also be affected if the test kits were of poor quality.
However, the Vietnamese Ministry of Health said last year that there were indeed problems with the pricing of Viet A kits, but the quality was fully in line with Vietnamese standards.
With the continuous emergence of the new crown variant virus, Vietnam's "anti-epidemic excellent student" scenery is no longer there. After the epidemic in the second half of 2021, the epidemic curve in Vietnam rose sharply from February 2022 to a peak in mid-March, and the number of confirmed cases in a single day exceeded 200,000, and then began to decline.
Vietnam epidemic curve since 2020 Source: Our World In Data
At present, the epidemic situation in Vietnam is basically stable, and the daily new cases are about 1,000. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Vietnam has accumulated more than 10.73 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, ranking 12th in the world.
Vietnamese people doing nucleic acid testing Source: Vietnamese government website
Official earthquake
Pan Guoyue's arrest is just the beginning. An anti-corruption campaign that affected Vietnam's health, technology and technology systems, and even involved the military, began.
On December 30, 2021, the Vietnam Central Steering Committee for Anti-Corruption and Honesty Promotion issued a statement pointing out that as Vietnam is fighting the COVID-19 epidemic throughout the country, the public opinion of the Yueya Company incident has affected the people's confidence in the government's epidemic prevention work and the fight against corruption.
The statement requires the relevant departments to strictly handle the illegal acts involved in this case in accordance with the law, "there is no forbidden area, no exception, and no illegal interference by any organization or individual."
On December 31, 2021, the investigative organs of the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam filed a public prosecution against Nguyen Minh Chun, former director of the Department of Medical Equipment and Engineering of the Ministry of Health, Nguyen Nam Lam, director of the Department of Financial Planning of the Ministry of Health, and Zheng Qingxiong, deputy director of the Department of Technology, Economy and Science and Technology of the Ministry of Science and Technology, for the crime of "abuse of power".
From left: Nguyen Myyen, Nguyen Nam Lam, Thiem Anh Hung
Prior to this, the Vietnamese public security department had prosecuted Nguyen Van Dinh, director of the Phan An Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nguyen Thi Hong, chief accountant of the Phu thanh Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Nguyen Thanh Thanh, director of the Binh Duong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Chen Qingfeng, deputy director of the Financial accounting department of the Binh Duong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Li Shi Hongchuan, former head of the laboratory of the Binh Duong Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and Jiao Guoqiang, deputy director of the Finance Department of the Binh Duong Provincial Health Department and chief accountant.
In March 2022, Lieutenant General Sue Sue, a spokesman for Vietnam's Ministry of Public Security, revealed that the ministry had commissioned public security organs in 62 provinces and cities in Vietnam to collect materials on the Case of Yueya Company, and that by March, more than 1.6 trillion VND (about 460 million yuan) of assets had been recovered, sealed and seized.
At the end of March, the Central Inspection Commission of the Communist Party of Vietnam held a meeting to deliberate on the results of the investigation into violations of laws and regulations by a number of officials involved in the Yueya Company case, and held that Zhu Yuying, a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the chairman of the People's Committee of Hanoi City (equivalent to the mayor) and the former minister of science and technology; Nguyen Thiện Thiệng Đ Pham Klong Trang, member of the Party Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and vice minister of science and technology; Vice Minister of Health Ruan Changshan and a number of leading cadres of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health bear joint responsibility for relevant violations of laws and regulations, and bear personal responsibility for violations of laws and regulations in the performance of duties and in the performance of tasks.
The meeting also announced the handling of relevant leaders of the Vietnam Military Medical College. Lieutenant General Ruan Yueliang, secretary of the party committee of the school, Ruan Songling, secretary of the party committee of the Military Science Division, Major Wu Yingjun, deputy secretary of the party committee of the Finance Department, and Li Changming, director of the chemical and pharmaceutical department of the college's equipment and materials department, were warned and punished.
Colonel Hu Yingshan, Secretary of the Party Branch and Vice President of the Military Medical Research Institute under the Military Medical College; Colonel Nguyen Van, deputy secretary of the party branch and director of the college's materials and equipment department, was expelled from the party. Hu Yingshan is the person in charge of the nucleic acid reagent test kit project.
Hu Anh Shan (right), vice president of the Military Medical Research Institute under the Vietnam Military Medical College, and Pan Guoyue Image source: Vietnamese government website
In June, Zhu Yuying, Ruan Qinglong, and Fan Gongzhuo were expelled from the party and dismissed from public office.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam held that the illegal acts of the party group of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the party group of the Ministry of Health were very serious, and that comrades Zhu Yuying, Nguyen Thien Thanh, Pham Kung Tau and other comrades had declined in politics, moral character, and work style, violated the party's regulations and the laws of the state, violated the 19th strict prohibition of party members, and violated the vanguard model responsibility system; Causing very serious consequences, and causing major losses and waste to the state's finances, affecting the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and causing social dissatisfaction; It has a negative impact on the authority of the Party organization, the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health.
On June 7, the investigative authorities of the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam indicted Zhu Yuying and Pham Kung Tsui for violating the regulations on the use of state assets and causing loss and waste of state assets, and Nguyen Thanh Thiệng for abuse of power, as well as a search warrant and arrest warrant.
Pham Kung Trang, former Vice Minister of Science and Technology of Vietnam Source: Vietnam News Agency
According to Vietnamese media statistics, as of June 9, more than 60 people involved in the Yueya case had been prosecuted and detained.
According to Professor Zhao Weihua, deputy director of the Research Center for China-Neighboring Countries at Fudan University, the case involved officials from more than a dozen provinces and cities in Vietnam, among which Ruan Qinglong and Zhu Yuying had an important position in Vietnamese politics.
Nguyen Thanh Thiện, 56, became Vice Minister of Health in January 2020, shortly after the emergence of COVID-19, and Acting Minister of Health in July of the same year. In October 2020, the U.S. Embassy in Vietnam held the U.S. National Day and the 25th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Vietnam, and Nguyen Thanh Thien attended on behalf of the Vietnamese government; In November, he was promoted to Minister of Health.
As for Đạng Đại If nothing else, he could even storm the next Politburo. ”
Cho believes that after the fall of Nguyen Thanh Thiồng, Zhu Ngoc Eng and Pham Kung Tsui, the Vietnamese government may continue to pursue some specific people involved in the "Yue Ya case", but it is unlikely that officials at or above the ministerial level will be involved.
The BBC Vietnamese channel quoted Vietnamese lawyers as saying that Nguyen Thien Thien could face up to 15 years in prison and Zhu Yuying could be 20 years, but if it is found that there are mitigating circumstances, such as voluntary compensation or outstanding performance at work, the sentence may be reduced to less than 10 years.
How long is the road to anti-corruption?
The "Yueya case" shocked Vietnamese society, and Thiem Bui, a visiting scholar at Duke University's Center for International Development, believes that the difference between this case and other corruption cases is that it has seriously undermined the confidence of the Vietnamese people in the government's epidemic prevention efforts.
Hai Hong Nguyen, an emeritus researcher at the Centre for Future Policy in the University of Queensland's School of Humanities and Social Sciences, wrote in February that corruption is a virus that spreads across all sectors of Vietnam and that the case may be just the tip of the "iceberg" of corruption in Vietnam.
In fact, Vietnam's anti-corruption path has been around for many years.
Since becoming general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam in 2011, and especially since his second term in 2016, Nguyen Phu Trong has been actively engaged in an anti-corruption campaign.
"The furnace is burning, and the wet firewood has to be burned when thrown in." Nguyen Phu Trong's anti-corruption quote was widely circulated in Vietnamese society. Nguyen HaiHong explained that this sentence means that when the entire society mobilizes to fight corruption, the fight against corruption can be successful.
General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam Nguyen Phu Trung Source: Viet Nam News Agency
In recent years, Vietnam's anti-corruption campaign has indeed been very successful:
From 2013 to 2020, Vietnam's party committees and inspection commissions at all levels disciplined 131,000 party members; the national judicial organs prosecuted, investigated, and tried more than 11,700 corruption and economic cases; more than 800 cases were followed up and guided by the Central Anti-Corruption Steering Committee; and 18 cadres were managed by the central government and subject to criminal handling, including 1 member of the Politburo of the CPV Central Committee, 7 former members of the CPV Central Committee, 4 ministers, former ministers, and 7 military officers.
In 2021, a total of 390 cases of corruption and abuse of office were prosecuted and investigated throughout Vietnam, involving a total of 1,011 defendants. In the same year, Vietnam rose from 104 to 87 in the Corruption Perceptions Index of Transparency International, an international NGO that monitors corruption.
However, under the "iron fist" of anti-corruption, why will there still be systematic corruption cases in Vietnam during the epidemic, and why do Vietnamese officials at all levels dare to "defy the wind"?
Professor Zhao Weihua pointed out that corruption in Vietnam is very common, and many Chinese tourists who go to Vietnam have experience of being tipped at customs. Despite vigorously promoting the construction of civil society, Vietnam is still a society of acquaintances in general, the wind of nepotism is very popular from top to bottom, and the Vietnamese people also have the saying that "one person becomes an official, the whole family can be ashamed", "After a person becomes an official, the whole family depends on you, or a person becomes a high official in the central government, he will bring up the surrounding villagers." The overall atmosphere of Vietnamese society is such that no one-term leader can change in the short term. ”
Zhao Weihua believes that Nguyen Phu Trong is indeed a leader who attaches great importance to anti-corruption, especially since his second term, his political foundation is basically solid, and he has begun to take vigorous anti-corruption measures.
"Judging from the number of people fighting corrupt elements, his strength is very large. However, in terms of the overall effect of anti-corruption, it is still not optimistic. Because the momentum of corruption has not been curbed, corrupt officials still grasp a large number of them every year, and everyone still 'goes forward and follows'. ”
In Zhao Weihua's view, Nguyen Phu Trong's anti-corruption can be called "moderate anti-corruption", "the punishment is relatively low, there is almost no life imprisonment or death penalty, the positive aspect of this practice is to reduce the resistance in the anti-corruption process, and the negative aspect is not enough deterrence to corrupt elements." Vietnam's highest-level power structure is the so-called 'four-horse-drawn carriage' system, which largely constrains Nguyen Phu Trong's efforts to fight corruption because of the need to take care of and coordinate all aspects of relations. ”
"Nguyen Phu Trong's third term has just begun, and judging from his second and third terms, he is determined and fruitful in his anti-corruption work, but Vietnam still has a long way to go to eliminate corruption and become a 'clean society.'" Zhao Weihua said.