Rolf Bergman, Swedish Ambassador suggested that Vietnam should encourage the media, the private sector and the general public to monitor and actively follow the progress of anti-corruption work inline with the new anti-corruption law which Vietnam passed last year.
The Swedish Ambassador to Vietnam raised the anti-corruption issues at a Consultative group meeting between development partners and the Government of Vietnam in mid December 2006.
“In a society where bribes and petty-corruption has become more or less accepted, it takes more than rules and regulations to change the state of affaires” Rolf Bergman said in a speech
“Children and youth should be a specific target group for education and training,” he added. “Why not create a vision where today’s children in Vietnam will become the first generation of adults to live in a society free of corruption?” he creatively advised.
“Corruption is an extremely serious obstacle to development and poverty reduction,” said Rolf Bergman.
“It is also a very complex, difficult and sensitive to deal with, and fighting corruption will consequently require long-term, broad, consistent and well-coordinated efforts,” he said.
In 2005, Swedish Embassy has sponsored the Internal Affairs Committee of the Central Committee (CCIA) of the Communist Party of Vietnam to carry out the survey identified the types and causes of corruption in Vietnam, and was the first of its kind in the country. The results show that among top-ten 10 organizations perceived as corrupt by respondents was land and housing administration, custom, traffic police, tax administration and construction registers. The forms of corruption most commonly mentioned are soliciting bribes by creating obstacles, accepting bribes for favors, and using public means for personal benefit.
Other surveys on corruption in Vietnam focus on business. The Investment Climate Survey conducted by the World Bank in 2005 is one. It is based on a large survey of manufacturing firms in the formal sector, and comes to many similar results as the study by CCIA but interestingly it found that corruption was of relatively low importance to business.
