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The officials in question had helped others grab land slated for farmers, according to previous investigations. Those who got the land then enjoyed fat relocation payments when their property was expropriated for a major project. The officials responsible only received mild reprimands after the case came to light.
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The inspection team, including six members from the Government Inspectorate, will work with the administrations of Thu Thua District and Long An Province, as well as the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment to identify people involved in the land scam and their wrongdoings.
Further penalties will then be recommended to the Prime Minister.
In 1993, the Thu Thua District People’s Committee in Long An was supposed to divvy up 1,760 hectares of public land in Tan Lap Commune among local farming families, who were supposed to receive three hectares each for agricultural purposes.
Yet many district and province leaders, some not locals and with no farming experience, were given more than three hectares each, according to the province investigators.
In 2002, Long An Province reclaimed the land for a HCMC-Long An waste treatment zone and paid hefty compensation fees to the officials and their relatives, even though none of them had grown crops on the land as they were obligated to do when they accepted. Farmers were compensated far less as their landholdings were much smaller.
Figures from Long An Department of Natural Resources and Environment last August showed that more than VND190 billion (US$10.7 million) had been paid in compensation for 613 land plots.
Mai Thanh Lap, deputy head of the Long An Province Communist Party Unit, was granted 5.8 hectares and then received VND700 million ($40,930) in compensation for it.
Mai Huynh Minh, then a Long An Police officer and now office manager of the Province People’s Committee, was granted four hectares and compensated with more than VND400 million in 2004.
His superiors Pham Sy Quyet, Le Thanh Tong and Vo Duy Hien enjoyed similar distributions.
Local residents often joked that the officials had won “Thu Thua” lottery tickets.
In 2005, the province inspectors concluded that Thu Thua District authorities had violated the Land Law and several officials of the district were censured.
Nguyen Van Chung was dismissed from head of the district Natural Resources and Environment Department while Bui Duc So, deputy head of the district Communist Party unit, and Le Anh Thuy, chairman of the district People’s Committee, were also reprimanded.
Each of the three had served as district People’s Committee chairmen at one point since 1995, signing decisions to grant a total of 300 hectares to 111 officials from the province.
Many locals and frustrated farmers have decried the penalties against the three officials as far too lenient.
Quang Thuan