The director and deputy director and two officers of the Consular Department of Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs have just been arrested and probed for accepting bribes when conducting rescue flights for citizens stuck abroad during the recent COVID-19 epidemic. The state-controlled media reported the news on January 28, citing Lieutenant General To An Xo, chief of the Office of the Ministry of Public Security.
The information that Gen. Xo provided to the press was that these people had committed violations in the process of approving and granting permits for companies to carry out flights to bring Vietnamese citizens home from abroad in order to make a personal profit.
Four people were probed and detained, including Director of the Consular Department Nguyen Thi Huong Lan and her deputy Do Hoang Tung, Le Tuan Anh, chief of Office of the department, and Deputy of the Department of Citizen Protection Luu Tuan Dung.
In a press conference on January 20, Vietnamese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said that in the past two years, under the direct direction of the Government, there have been more than 800 repatriation flights from more than 60 territories bringing Vietnamese citizens home.
Responding to reporters’ questions about Vietnamese returning home on a rescue flight had to buy expensive tickets and cumbersome procedures, Ms. Hang gave a recommendation:
“In order to prevent citizens from being scammed and taken advantage of to appropriate property, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has advised citizens not to contact individuals, organizations, unknown, unorthodox and unknown information sites work through any intermediary form.”
She also affirmed that acts of negative profiteering, changing the humanitarian nature of rescue flights should be condemned and severely punished in accordance with the law.
As reflected by many people and has been reported by the domestic press, the ticket prices of the rescue flights over the past time were many times higher than the normal fare. For example, the price of a one-way ticket to rescue people from the US and Canada has reached VND52-58 million per ticket, twice the normal price.
That is not to mention the cumbersome, troublesome, and expensive procedure according to an RFA research article published in October.
In addition to cumbersome paperwork, people returning home even though they have had enough vaccines must also be isolated. According to Vietnamese people in the US, the isolation cost is about VND500,000 /room/person with only breakfast to VND1.5 million/room/person with three meals.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
