Vietnamese and Japanese officials met in Hanoi on Tuesday to discuss measures to combat corruption related to Vietnam’s projects funded by Japan’s official development assistance (ODA).
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The meeting was held by the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment to seek ways to prevent and fight corruption in such projects.
Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, Nguyen Chi Dung and Charge d’affaires of the Japanese Embassy in Vietnam, Hideo Suzuki co-chaired the meeting.
The event occurred amid an allegation that Japan Transportation Consultants, Inc. (JTC) paid bribes worth over US$785,000 in Vietnam to win an order for a Japanese ODA-funded project.
The alleged graft was uncovered when Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported in March that Tamio Kakinuma, president of JTC, had admitted accusations that the firm paid ¥80 million (over $785,000) in bribes in return for an ODA project order worth ¥4.2 billion (over $41.2 million) in Vietnam.
The newspaper also said JTC allegedly bribed civil servants in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan with ¥130 million (over $1.27 million) from February 2008 to February of this year in order to receive orders for five Japanese ODA-funded projects in these countries.
At yesterday’ meeting, Deputy Minister Dung recognized that the reported bribery is a serious case, affecting Japanese ODA-funded projects in the Southeast Asian country.
He affirmed that the Vietnamese government is determined to fight corruption in all projects using ODA from other countries, including Japan.
Meanwhile, Hideo Suzuki said that the case is a regretful incident in the relation between the two countries and that he wanted to be updated on the results of the investigation from the Vietnamese side.
The official also suggested that Vietnam and Japan should continue cooperate to combat graft and avoid the recurrence of such a scandal in the future.
In a notice released at the end of the meeting, the ministry affirmed that the Vietnamese side has unveiled the results of the investigation into those projects related to JTC and the state-owned Vietnam Railways Corporation.
The two sides have discussed measures to prevent similar cases and will take such measures in the future, according to the document.
In early May, six Vietnamese railway officials were arrested for their involvement in the alleged bribery case.
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Đăng ký: VietNam News
