Viet Nam's 'corrupt' culture By Roger Mitton
Publisher:The Straits Times - Publication Date: 21-09-2007

A couple of police officers waved down our minibus when it reached a junction.
We were on our way to a village near the port of Quy Nhon in central Viet Nam, and a fellow passenger leaned over to warn me what would happen next.
"They are going to find something wrong," he said. "Then they'll fine the driver."
I said there did not seem to be anything wrong. "They'll find something," he said. And of course, he was right.
One of the women passengers had a box on her knee. Inside was a toy soldier that she had bought as a present for her nephew in a distant village.
The police officer said that was an offence because it constituted transporting goods, whereas the van was only licensed to carry passengers.
The driver did not protest. He simply handed over 50,000 dong (about US$3) and we continued on our way.
As bribes go, it was not much. But the driver said he has to pay it every day.
So do scores of other motorists. Policemen make a tidy sum.
It is that kind of petty, daily corruption that infuriates Vietnamese people.
A survey by the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy rates Viet Nam as the fourth most corrupt nation in Asia, after Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.
What makes the situation worse is that corruption in Viet Nam is not discussed openly because of tight state censorship.
People are cynical of government claims that the prosecution of an occasional top bureaucrat shows that the fight against corruption is succeeding.
Earlier this month, the former head of the Transport Ministry's road-building agency was jailed for 13 years for gambling and bribery. Eight other officials were given jail terms.
When that scandal broke two years ago, then-Transport Minister Dao Dinh Binh was forced to resign. His deputy was arrested but so far has not been charged.
While these moves have been praised, ordinary citizens complain that the downfall of a corrupt minister has little impact on the way they are routinely shaken down by policemen, doctors, schoolteachers, landlords, transport officials, and all manner of petty bureaucrats.
Consider the education system. Nothing irks the Vietnamese more than the way their desire to obtain good schooling for their kids is exploited by under-paid state teachers.
Parents fume about having to pay clandestine monthly 'tips' to ensure teachers pay attention to their children.
Education in nominally communist Viet Nam is supposed to be free. In practice, it costs a lot of money, especially if parents want to put their child in one of the more reputable state schools.
Nguyen Lan Huong, a Hanoi insurance broker with two kids, told The Straits Times that when she tried to place her daughter in a recommended high school, the principal told her it was impossible because the school was full.
Fair enough, except that the impression was left that the door was not necessarily closed. Sure enough, when Huong arranged for a payment to be made, the principal discovered there was space for her daughter after all.
"I paid $1,000," said Huong. "And I still have to give him presents and money on special days, like the start of the school year."
Citizens must stoically put up with the same kind of shenanigans from the nation's law enforcement agencies.
Tran Xuan Linh, a motorbike taxi driver in Hanoi, when asked if he pays bribes to policemen, said: "Have you just dropped from the sky? Such a dumb question. All Vietnamese know the answer is yes."
Linh said he must cough up cash every time he commits an offence.
"If I go through a red light, the fine should be 50,000 dong ($3). But if I give the policeman 100,000 dong ($6), he will let me go."
Of course, he always pays the officer, even though it is often more than what he makes each day. Otherwise his bike will be confiscated for 15 days, which would cost him a daily storage fee, and prevent him from working. On top of that, he would be fined.
The same shady business goes on in the health service where citizens fume over the hypocrisy inherent in the country's supposedly free socialist system.
All Vietnamese know that to get decent treatment they must pay the doctor. And if they want reputable medication, they must also pay for that.
Trinh Thi Thu Trang, a young mother who works as a clerk at an embassy in Hanoi, said she always has to pay her doctor if she does not want to spend several hours at the clinic.
"Normally, I give her at least 50,000 dong to get checked quickly," she said.
All the women she knows who go into hospital to give birth 'tip' the staff.
Trang said: "In a city hospital, if you want the doctor to treat you promptly and carefully, you have to give at least 500,000 dong."
When she gave birth, her daughter was looked after properly only because her husband had given the physician money in advance.
"But the poor woman and her baby in the next bed were not treated well," said Trang. "When I asked her about it, she just cried and said her family was too poor to give the doctors any money."
The root cause of the endemic corruption among Vietnam's state employees, of course, is that they are paid pitifully low wages.
A teacher or doctor fresh out of college gets only around $65 a month in a state school or clinic. A rookie cop gets about the same amount.
Naturally, the temptation to take backhanders is almost irresistible.
But that is no consolation to ordinary people who have to fork out bribes on an almost daily basis.
A particular scam that infuriates Vietnamese is the way doctors write a prescription for free medicine at the state chemist, but then say: "If you really want to get better, you should take this other medicine which you can get at a pharmacy I know."
Of course, the pharmacist charges steeply for the other medication and the doctor gets a percentage from the transaction.
Trang said: "I know doctors work with pharmacists to make extra money, but if you don't do as they say, the next time you go to see them, they will say it is your fault that your baby is not well."

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That is really scary. I dont think there is a way to change that unless they crack down on people and embarrass them really badly. How does someone fix something like that when its everywhere?

A birth tip? That's just horrible!