Business Beat
Sai Gon Railway Station authorities have decided to let all inbound passengers leave the station without checking their tickets at the gate, beginning this month. For some people, it is a big improvement; for most others, it is only a prevalence of common sense and logic.The practice of checking tickets at the end of their journey has existed for so long that people have really forgotten the rationale behind it. It was ridiculous that tired travellers had to elbow their way out of the station through small gates for having to tender their tickets at the station. The argument went that the inspection could uncover ticketless travellers. But aren’t tickets inspected on the train? In any case, slipping out of the station unnoticed would be much easier than travelling all the way on the train, in case one did not buy a ticket.
Well, it is better late than never for common sense to prevail and now passengers can breathe a sigh of relief that there is no more hassle lying in wait at the railway station. But beware, the powers that be have said, ominously, they reserve the right to accost suspicious cases.
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A lack of co-ordination among state agencies has meant that frauds take place with impunity, ludicrous in this age of information technology.
At the district level, authorities often crack down on restaurants that tolerate and abet sex solicitation; frequent offenders are even forced to close down. However, it is not uncommon to see an owner present a new licence to run the same establishment at the same place, only under a different name, frustrating district authorities. How does it happen? This is how.
Business registration for licence is done at another office – the city’s Department of Planning and Investment, which has no knowledge of these violations. Lately, however, the HCM City People’s Committee has understood what’s happening and has told the department to get opinions from district authorities before granting licences.
But a catch remains; licences are issued automatically if they are not done so within five days, which the department people protest is too short a period.
The solution lies in linking up all 22 districts with the department – by fax, e-mail or the city’s Intranet – eliminating the need to send a verification request and wait for the reply. once linked, a regular update of violations should ensure that offenders have the door shut on their face when they apply for a new licence. Then the district authorities can do what the villains are doing now: laughing under their sleeves.
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Lottery ticket vendors are having a hard time, especially in selling Long An Province’s tickets. Ever since the big lottery scam was uncovered there, people seem to wary of buying them, not wanting to become unsuspecting victims of similar cons.
Inspectors discovered that in a draw at Long An last month, kids who were given the job of picking the winning numbers had deftly changed them. Subsequent investigations revealed that a criminal gang has rigged the lottery results several times, using not-so-innocent kids to produce the numbers they wanted. With the kids’ share of the loot itself running into billions of dong, it boggles the mind to think how much the ringleaders would have made.
Investigations are still on to discover the involvement, if any, of the Long An Lottery Company. This has not prevented lottery companies’ business from taking a hit and buyers of Long An’s tickets are pondering class action suits to demand compensation. Though it sounds far-fetched, it is just possible that the company would have to compensate them and raise winning amounts in future.
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Another scam, this time a collusion between pharmaceutical distributors and doctors, has been held up as the main cause for the astronomical drug prices in Viet Nam.
At a seminar last week, participants accused distributors enjoying monopolies of pushing up medicine prices, sometimes to 700 per cent of the imported price.
But without pliant doctors, willing to prescribe their products, they cannot sell them. In spite of similar products available at low prices, doctors preferred to prescribe the expensive ones to pocket commissions. Participants revealed the going commission rate to be 30 per cent and doctors turning down any offer lower than that. Kickbacks to doctors also take the form of expensive gifts, free trips abroad and professional conferences at high-class resorts, which turn out, in fact, to be pleasure trips.
Participants suggested ways to restore order in the market, making medicines available to the poor at fair prices. The Ministry of Health could make carrying prices on medicine labels mandatory. The ministry could also make it easier for alternative drugs to be imported and distributed to prevent monopolies. Participants also suggested that licenses for drug imports be given to manufacturers and not to distributors, for the purpose.
VNS
