HANOI: A former spokesperson for the Vietnamese government went on trial on Thursday (Jan 16) on charges of graft, an accusation that has seen dozens of senior officials jailed or sacked in a sweeping anti-corruption drive.
Thousands of people, including top officials and senior business leaders, have been caught up in the Southeast Asian country’s “blazing furnace” crackdown.
Mai Tien Dung, former government office chairman and spokesperson for the cabinet, is accused of “abusing power” and taking bribes related to a US$1-billion eco-resort and urban project.
Eight other former central and provincial government officials went on trial on Thursday at the court in Hanoi, facing similar charges linked to land rights violations over the Dai Ninh real estate project in Lam Dong province.
Businessman Nguyen Cao Tri is accused of offering bribes worth more than seven billion dong (US$275,000) to officials in the government inspectorate and to senior Lam Dong province officials.
Dung, who was the government’s spokesman between 2016 and 2021, is accused of taking 200 million dong in bribes.
As a result of the cover-up, the state could not retrieve 3,600 hectares of land, “causing land wastefulness and facilitating 24 cases of illegal forest soil destruction”, state media said.
Dung admitted at the court on Thursday that his behavior was wrong and accepted responsibility.
“I hope the court will consider and grant leniency,” state-controlled news site VNExpress quoted Dung as saying.
The case comes after more than a dozen officials were jailed for up to 12 years in December for corruption over repatriation flights and quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That scandal saw Dung receive a warning from the ruling Communist party, but he was not formally accused of a crime.
Both cases are part of a major anti-graft drive that has led to the resignation of a president and two deputy prime ministers in a country where political changes are usually carefully orchestrated.
In 2024, Vietnamese police handled 825 corruption cases involving 1,676 people, an increase of more than 16 per cent compared to 2023, according to the public security ministry.