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

HANOI (Reuters) – Vietnam on Tuesday arrested its health minister and the leader of its capital city Hanoi, after the two were accused of violating the ruling Communist Party’s rules and allegedly causing losses to the state budget, authorities said.

Nguyen Thanh Long and Chu Ngoc Anh were earlier sacked from their roles as health minister and chairman of the People’s Committee of Hanoi. Their arrests come amid an intensifying anti-corruption drive that was launched in 2016.

Dozens of senior health officials have been arrested in recent months, accused of wrongdoings in medical equipment procurement, including COVID-19 test kits. Senior finance and diplomatic officials have also been targeted, and many have faced trials and been jailed.

The National Assembly, the country’s lawmaking body, voted on Tuesday to remove Long, 55, from the position of health minister, which he assumed in 2020, the government said in a statement.

Long has been accused of mismanagement and facilitating a local firm to overstate its prices of COVID-19 test kits, according to the statement.

The People’s Council of Hanoi held a meeting on Tuesday to unanimously dismiss Anh, who was a minister of science and technology before being appointed as Hanoi chairman in September, 2020.

Long and Anh were also expelled from the Communist Party of Vietnam on Monday, according to another government news release.

The government said Long and Anh have “degraded…political ideology, violated the party’s regulations and caused losses to the state budget”.

Calls to Long’s phone went unanswered, and Anh could also not be reached.

The Ministry of Health has assigned its deputy minister Do Xuan Tuyen as the acting minister, official Vietnam News Agency cited the ministry as saying. Hanoi will be temporarily led by the city’s deputy chairman, Le Hong Son.

(Reporting by Khanh Vu and Phuong Nguyen; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor)