Hanoi (VNA) – Deputy Prime Minister Truong HoaBinh on January 21 requested relevant agencies adamantly deal with lawviolations as well as corrupted officials and public employees who lend a handto criminals.

He made the requirement at a meeting held inHanoi by the Government’s steering committee for crime fight and the nationalsteering committee for prevention and control of smuggling, trade fraud andcounterfeit goods.

Deputy Minister of Public Security Sen. Lt. Gen.Le Quy Vuong reported that more than 53,000 social order violating cases wererecorded in 2018, and over 50 percent of criminal cases related to assetappropriation.

Corruption tends to decline but petty corruptionstill exists in many fields. Meanwhile, crimes and economic law violationsstill occurred in many sectors, particularly finance, banking, land management,natural resources and project investment.

Smuggling, trading of banned products, and cross-bordertrafficking of goods and money haven’t shown signs of decrease, he noted,adding that hi-tech criminals have used many new tricks, causing widespreadlosses. Online gambling has also become serious, involving trillions of VND.

Vuong said police have coordinated with relevantforces to prevent, investigate and deal with crimes well while dealing withcomplex criminal and social order problems in a timely fashion.

At the meeting, many participants said it is ofutmost importance to continue enhancing discipline in the fight againstsmuggling and trade fraud. They pointed out that there remain some officialsand public employees with low capacity and degraded morality, which hashampered the combat against crimes, smuggling and counterfeits.

Applauding improvements in the crime preventionand control, Deputy PM Binh said this is a constant task of all ministries,sectors and localities.

He partly attributed the complicated smugglingand trade fraud situation to the lack of responsibility and lax management,even collusion with criminals, of some corrupted officials and publicemployees. Therefore, he requested inspections be stepped up and pettycorruption be thoroughly eradicated at administrative agencies so that people’strust in officials and public employees will not be undermined.

It is also necessary to prevent crimes rightwithin authorised forces themselves such as the public security, customs,market management, border guard, coast guard or taxation forces. Officials andpublic employees who lack sense of responsibility or show signs of committingviolations must be strictly handled so as to clean up agencies’ apparatus, Binhstressed.-VNA