Vietnam’s health minister, Hanoi city chief arrested amid anti-graft drive

Deputies attend the opening ceremony of the Nationwide Meeting’s autumn session in Hanoi, Vietnam October 23, 2017. REUTERS/Kham

HANOI, June 7 (Reuters) – Vietnam on Tuesday arrested its well being minister and the chief of its capital metropolis Hanoi, after the 2 had been accused of violating the ruling Communist Social gathering’s guidelines and allegedly inflicting losses to the state funds, authorities mentioned.

Nguyen Thanh Lengthy and Chu Ngoc Anh had been earlier sacked from their roles as well being minister and chairman of the Folks’s Committee of Hanoi. Their arrests come amid an intensifying anti-corruption drive that was launched in 2016.

Dozens of senior well being officers have been arrested in latest months, accused of wrongdoings in medical gear procurement, together with COVID-19 take a look at kits. Senior finance and diplomatic officers have additionally been focused, and lots of have confronted trials and been jailed.

The Nationwide Meeting, the nation’s lawmaking physique, voted on Tuesday to take away Lengthy, 55, from the place of well being minister, which he assumed in 2020, the federal government mentioned in an announcement.

Lengthy has been accused of mismanagement and facilitating a neighborhood agency to overstate its costs of COVID-19 take a look at kits, in response to the assertion.

The Folks’s Council of Hanoi held a gathering on Tuesday to unanimously dismiss Anh, who was a minister of science and expertise earlier than being appointed as Hanoi chairman in September, 2020.

Lengthy and Anh had been additionally expelled from the Communist Social gathering of Vietnam on Monday, in response to one other authorities information launch.

The federal government mentioned Lengthy and Anh have “degraded…political ideology, violated the social gathering’s rules and triggered losses to the state funds”.

Calls to Lengthy’s cellphone went unanswered, and Anh may additionally not be reached.

The Ministry of Well being has assigned its deputy minister Do Xuan Tuyen because the performing minister, official Vietnam Information Company cited the ministry as saying. Hanoi shall be briefly led by town’s deputy chairman, Le Hong Son.

Reporting by Khanh Vu and Phuong Nguyen; Modifying by Kanupriya Kapoor

Our Requirements: The Thomson Reuters Belief Ideas.