Is there a “black market for buying and selling positions”? What solutions are there to improve the quality of the staff, fight against “buying positions and power” and corruption and negativity? We will address these issues through a series of articles “ Warning about the situation of viewing positions as commodities ”.

Lesson 1: "Money-minded officials" - a danger threatening the survival of the regime

It is difficult to imagine what would happen if every position and title in the Party organization and the government system became a commodity, valued and could be exchanged and bought and sold like any other commodity. One thing is certain, the cadres born from the evil of “buying and selling official positions” will consider it a business investment, so they will find every way to “collect” all sources of income to quickly “recover capital” and “make a profit”. Also from this mechanism, they continue to recruit and appoint more cadres of the same type in the style of “birds of a feather flock together”, leaving comprehensive and long-term damage to the country and the revolutionary cause.

Is there a "black market for buying and selling positions"?

Up to now, the authorities have not yet discovered and exposed any successful cases of "buying and selling positions", job-buying, or staffing to confirm and clarify a number of issues of public concern: Does this situation exist? If so, how much does each position, job position, or staffing position in a Party or State agency cost? What are the forms and methods of buying and selling? Who is the seller and who participates in "business, distribution, and marketing"? What do they do with the "chairs" they buy? What are the consequences?... Although there is no basis to accurately answer these questions, many cases of job-buying fraud have been discovered involving many officials in the Party and government organization system with amounts of up to hundreds of millions and billions of dong, making people believe that positions can be bought, sold, and exchanged for material goods or benefits.

“Buying positions, buying power”, “buying and selling positions” are concrete acts of turning “positions” into “commodities”. Because only when they become commodities and are priced will people know the “price” for “buying” and who is the seller and the runner. More worryingly, if in the past this situation only occurred in a narrow scope, in some places, some subjects, now it has occurred quite commonly, penetrating deep, spreading to many levels, many sectors, many subjects, connecting into cliques, factions, groups... extremely sophisticated and methodical. People do not only "buy and sell" in material terms but also in immaterial forms, even by exchange and negotiation: You help me "buy" this position, I help you "buy" that position, or "buy" that project... Therefore, it is no longer a personal story but has transformed, transformed, forming interest groups, networks, teams to buy positions, sell titles, and then become a corruption network.

Scene of the trial of the defendants involved in the “rescue flight” case. Photo: VNA

At the National Assembly forum, on November 5, 2019, delegate Nguyen Tien Sinh (National Assembly Delegation of Hoa Binh Province) warned that a significant number of officials and party members with positions have degraded, become corrupt, and have limited capacity, stemming from corruption in personnel work and frankly stated: “Corruption in personnel organization work has long been considered a hot spot of corruption, but many people still consider it a forbidden area because there are no legal regulations regulating it in a synchronous and complete manner. The “black market for buying and selling positions” is not easy to answer who is buying and who is selling, only knowing that public opinion is buzzing that this “black market” is often bustling during elections and congresses”.

Delegate Le Nhu Tien, Vice Chairman of the Committee on Culture, Education, Youth, Adolescents and Children of the 13th National Assembly, expressed his concern: “Just listen to the people and public opinion, the more benefits you get in a certain position, the larger the initial investment. Therefore, people will not hesitate to use any means, no matter how much they pay, to “run” for it, because then they will have the opportunity to recover the capital they have spent. The story of civil servants carrying suitcases of money to competent authorities to run for positions, power, and sentences is completely true. If it is not stopped immediately, it will become a disease, a syndrome that is very difficult to cure.”

Buy the official will sell all kinds of things

The core quality of a communist is selflessness for the country and the people. Therefore, for them, wealth, money and gold cannot bribe them. Poverty cannot shake their spirit. No force can make them bow their heads in submission. The only thing that communists pursue is the ideal of "national independence and socialism". However, if they do not follow the path of self-cultivation and striving, but instead use money "through the front door and the back door" to serve the purpose of advancement, will the virtues, sacrifice, and selfless and pure spirit of service of cadres and party members still exist? Surely these cadres and party members will not consider power as a means to assert themselves, to realize their aspirations and ambitions to contribute to the country, but consider it an investment deal to satisfy their pursuit of fame, profit and pleasure; to easily "enrich their family". The only thing they worship, care about and think about is money and personal interests. Therefore, as soon as they enter the organization, they must think of every way to at least "recover capital" and then "make a profit".

Small positions seek to harass and exploit small things. When they have enough capital and profit, they buy higher positions and plunder more in a completely exploitative manner, as General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong confided in a talk with young party members nationwide on August 27, 2019: “On this occasion, I would like to confide in you, comrades, from the bottom of my heart. Just think about life, there are people who lack nothing, why are they so greedy? Before doing anything, they already think of “sucking”, whispering is “sucking”, speaking loudly is violating the law, disregarding the law, no longer worthy of being a party member, despised and looked down upon by the people”.

It is not difficult to imagine that when positions become commodities, everything else also becomes commodities. Because when they worship money, regardless of morality, those who buy positions will turn State power into personal power, into a tool for profit and distribution. First of all, those who "buy positions" will favor using people who know how to "use envelopes, go through the back door" to create a faction to protect themselves, aiming at the plot to unify the organization with the head of the organization to carry out super tricks, super dark schemes; turn the vital principles of the Party into formalities; distort all regulations; give birth to all kinds of bad habits. They take matters of principle lightly, regardless of principles and discipline, find loopholes and exploit loopholes in the Party's guidelines and policies, the State's policies and laws to benefit themselves and their factions.

“Business in titles” is a companion of power corruption and distorts and trivializes the Party’s cadre organization work, nullifies the role of the Party organization as well as the Party’s democratic centralism principle. It monopolizes, bribes, and corrupts the leader. It burns and kills the trust, the opportunity to strive and progress of genuine cadres. It destroys the trust in the Party organization, in the “root of work”. Those who “buy positions of power” successfully, climb to the pinnacle of power too easily will not have the necessary virtue and talent, so they easily abuse their power, disregard the organization, the Party committee, the people, the agency, and colleagues; seriously violate the Party’s principles; make the Party organization weak, lose its fighting spirit, and form “little gods” at the grassroots level, who are arrogant, conceited, and complacent. From there, a group of people are self-satisfied, dependent, and arrogant, developing suddenly without having to strive or make an effort; causing the remaining part (the majority) to become discouraged, lose their will to strive, and lack faith in the Party organization. Degeneration of power in general and corruption and negativity in particular will therefore become increasingly serious, threatening the survival of the Party and the socialist regime.

Discussing this issue, delegate Le Nhu Tien cited further evidence: “Once people have reached their positions, their signatures and decisions can bring in a lot of money, so they have to try to “buy positions and power” at all costs. In the past, it could have been hundreds of millions, now it is tens of billions, hundreds of billions. It is necessary to prevent “buying positions and power” which is a decisive factor in preventing corruption.”

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Van Giang, former Deputy Director of the Institute of Party Building, Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics, commented: “People have had to “run” from the position of department head to the position of deputy director and director of the department, then to the position of secretary, provincial chairman, and then to the Central level. That means they have to run after resigning from a small position. Continuing like this will ruin the work of cadres. If they still have the mindset of running when they reach the Central level, it will be very dangerous. The harm of buying and selling positions is extremely great, corrupting the entire system, and the most dangerous thing is ruining the entire cadre team.”

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NGUYEN DUC TUAN

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