Although the law provides criminal penalties for corruption by officials, the government did not implement the law effectively, and officials engaged in corrupt practices with impunity. There was also a noticeable increase in the number of high-profile arrests and prosecutions of high-ranking officials for corruption. This included existing and retired officials from the Politburo, Central Party, military, public security services.

Corruption: The lack of public consultation on land use plans and government land compensation frameworks was the primary driver of corrupt land transfers and source of land conflicts. Corruption in financial, banking, natural resource mining and public investment sectors also remained significant political and social problems.

The MPS reported it processed 185 corruption cases in 2017, the most recent data available. In a June speech, Communist Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong said the CPV had punished nearly 1,300 members in the prior two years for corruption. The great majority of these cases were handled within the Party and could not be independently confirmed.

According to a government report, in 2017 39 leaders were punished for allowing corruption to occur within their agencies compared with only 11 in 2016. The report stated the government prosecuted 136 corruption cases, up 177 percent from the previous year, and the police investigated 354 cases of which 345 were prosecuted. These resulted in the government recovering more than 1.52 trillion VND ($65 million) and 7.7 hectares (19 acres) of land.

In August Tran Trung Chi Hieu, former chairman of PetroVietnam, was convicted of bribery and corruption and sentenced to 28 years’ imprisonment, while Trinh Xuan Thanh, former chairman of PetroVietnam Construction, received a life sentence in January for embezzlement, and Dinh La Thang, a former politburo member and chairman of PetroVietnam, received in May an 18-year sentence for mismanagement and a separate 13-year sentence for embezzlement in January.

Corruption among police remained a significant problem at all levels as illustrated by the April 6 arrest of former MPS director general Phan Van Vinh on bribery charges, and police sometimes acted with impunity. Internal police oversight structures existed but were subject to political influence.

Financial Disclosure: The law requires senior government officials and National Assembly members to disclose to their agency their income and assets and explain changes from the previous year’s disclosure. In some cases these declarations were publicly declared to be correct or not. In addition supervisors have the right to question an employee’s disclosure. The law provides for reprimand, warning, suspension, or removal for noncompliant civil servants for corruption.

A 2017 government report stated that more than 1.1 million government workers disclosed their finances, but only 78 were verified, of which five were identified as incorrect. Media highlighted examples of civil servants driving luxury cars, using houses given to them by enterprises, or sending children to study overseas while ostensibly only earning small official salaries.