Up to 26 government officials in southern Laos’s Attapeu province have been disciplined or jailed for corruption since February, including the embezzlement of millions of dollars from compensation funds for a dam break, people with knowledge of the situation said.
The funds were meant to help Laotians displaced by severe flooding following heavy rains that caused the collapse of a saddle dam at the Xe Pian-Xe Namnoy hydropower project in Champassak in July 2018. Billions of cubic feet of water swept away homes in downstream villages in neighboring Attapeu province, leaving 71 people dead and displacing 14,440 others.
As much as 81 billion kip (about US$4 million) earmarked for survivors of the dam collapse was misappropriated, Lt. Gen. Vanthong Kongmany, the newly appointed governor of Attapeu province, told the State Inspection Authority in January.
Some of the 26 officials were also accused of accepting bribes from foreign investment projects, including tens of thousands of dollars from a Chinese company that wanted a land concession for a cassava plantation, the sources said.
“There has been a lot of corruption in Attapeu province,” said a former official, who like other sources in this report requested anonymity for safety reasons. “Many officials have embezzled money from the government.”
Four of the officials, including a village chief and his three deputies, were arrested and jailed for accepting bribes totaling about US$100,000, he told Radio Free Asia.
In exchange for the bribes, the officials issued a concession of 729 hectares (1,800 acres) of land in the vicinity of Nong Hin and Xay Donkhong villages in Attapeu’s Sanamxay district without the approval of the district chief and provincial governor, said a villager and a district resident who have been following the situation.
Authorities disciplined the officials who were involved in corruption at three or four workplaces and took money designated for the villagers, said the resident of Sanamxay district.
These officials were part of a group of about 10 other officials who also embezzled money led by Soukmai Soutbounloan, the province’s former director of the treasury, said the district resident. He was the highest-ranking official who was jailed for corruption in the province and committed suicide in prison at age 58.
“They were responsible for the compensation money for the dam collapse survivors, land concessions and many other projects,” he said. “They shared the bribes.”
While some have been caught and charged, others have not, the sources said.
“Most of them haven’t been charged with any crime yet, though they will be punished in the near future,” the former provincial official said. ”That’s the law.”
But some of them, whose names appear on a list, continue to work as usual and haven’t been fired or demoted, except for the village chief who was dismissed and jailed, the villager said.
Translated by Max Avary for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Joshua Lipes.