Huge money wasted on unused state cars Status hungry agencies continue to plea for new cars despite billions of dong being spent, and 7,000 perfectly good vehicles remaining unused.   Agencies are wasting public money on excessive numbers of new cars State agencies bought 611 new cars valued at a gigantic VND603bn (USD27m) in 2015 according to the Ministry off Finance, while 7,000 state-owned vehicles remained unused. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development led the list with 176 cars, with the Ministry of Industry and Trade in second with 57 cars. There were 29 unused cars in Binh Thuan Province and 73 cars in Quang Ninh Province. Vietnam has about 40,000 state-owned cars which are valued at VND13trn (USD590m) a year in terms of maintenance and driver wages. About 30% of the fleet is out-dated. This huge fleet was purchased using tax money yet have been left to deteriorate. In addition, lots of money is also being wasted on idle drivers, yet many agencies have refused to sell older cars while asking to buy newer models. These actions are in obvious contradiction with Decision 32 on the management and use of state cars. A state administrative agency is allowed to have one to three cars at most so the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and its member agencies can only use 276 cars. But in reality, they have up to 452 cars. This is not a special case, this is a common "mistake" that can be found everywhere. In order to deal with the situation, the Ministry of Finance has asked authorities at all levels to review and transfer unused cars to other agencies that are short on cars and to sell old cars quickly as their prices are decreasing with time. Agencies have been asked to submit reports about the state of their cars by the end of the first quarter but 30% of the agencies haven't filed the reports. "Agencies which didn't submit reports won't be allowed to buy new cars," said the representative of the Ministry of Finance. The Office of the National Assembly had planned on hiring a third party to provide cars to officials but it has never been realised because they prefer to benefit from the advantages and status afforded to blue-plated car. "Normal cars have to follow the rules of the road like everyone else and officials have refused to use taxis because they said they are too poor quality," said NA deputy Nguyen Sy Cuong. Why is there such overt violation at all levels of agencies? The question remains who will take responsibility for the violations because such blatant corruption is crippling Vietnam's development. By Bui Hoang Tam,  dtinews.vn