Officials in central Vietnam have caused an uproar by demanding that villagers who received funds from charity groups in the wake of severe flooding return some of the money.
Tuoi Tre reports that after a charity group from Saigon visited Trung Thon village in Quang Binh province to disburse VND500,000 to each of the 40 poorest households, local officials visited the familes and demanded that they return VND400,000 of the aid.
The authorities reasoned that this was done so that the funds could be evenly distributed to everyone in the area. They even threatened to prevent further aid from reaching households that did not comply with the order, according to the news source.
Le Van Luan, the village's deputy chief, told Tuoi Tre that the government was simply ensuring that other households which had also suffered from the flooding receive aid. "We [collected the money] to make it equal for everybody," Luan told the newspaper.
Unsurprisingly, this was not a popular move. The chairman of the nearest town stated that the village officials were "completely wrong" and demanded that they return the aid immediately.
On Tuesday morning, the Party Committee of Quang Trung Commune said that Trung Thon officials had returned to the village to give the aid money back.
Elsewhere in Quang Binh, VnExpress reports similar incidents in Tan Dong village. The news source shares the story of a 78 year-old woman who lives alone in a hut. She received VND2 million from a charity group, only to receive a visit from an official who told her to return the money.
"The official said the whole village was flooded and everyone had lost something, so anyone who received help should share it," the woman told the paper.
A family of five in the same commune also had to give back VND1 million in donations, leaving just VND60,000 per person.
According to the news source, Nguyen Tran Quang, a spokesman for Quang Binh, assured locals that higher-level authorities are looking into the issue to make sure it doesn't happen again. He also guaranteed that the local officials had not pocketed any of the aid money.
Flooding caused by torrential rains beginning October 13 submerged nearly 30,000 houses in Quang Binh and killed at least 22 people.
[Photo via Zing]
