If they wish to pass their exams, candidates of civil service examinations have to pay a bribe of at least VND100 million (US$4,800), said the chairman of the Hanoi Party Committee’s Commission for Inspection, Tran Trong Duc. Duc made the shocking statement yesterday at the last meeting of the session of the Hanoi People’s Council. “I would like to reveal a reality that chiefs of district interior departments, which receive applications of civil service examinees, take ‘under table’ money from candidates who want to pass the exams. And such a bribe is not less than VND100 million,” Duc said. “It is said that civil service examinees cannot pass their exams if they fail to offer the amount to chiefs of district interior departments,” he said, adding that “this worrying situation is taking place in the city.” There are many issues behind civil service exams, Duc said. “In many cases, the examination papers were totally identical in every detail, even in punctual marks, to the exam answer keys. That means examinees with such of ‘excellent’ papers certainly got the maximum mark.” Being a member of the Hanoi Council for Civil Service Examination, Duc said, “There was an examination in which we caught two teachers marking the papers of some examinees so that these papers could be identified later by markers of papers. We asked the Le Hong Phong Cadre Training School to discipline the two teachers.” The quality of civil service exams are generally not as good as expected, Duc said. “Among the staff members in my agency, about 30 percent can be ranked as ‘good’, 35 percent can be categorized as ‘fairly good and average’, and the rest can be considered as ‘poor’, he said. In general, about 20-30 percent of State employees fail to fulfill their duties as civil servants,” Duc said. “If we fail to reappraise, retrain and rearrange our staff, the rate of unqualified employees will never be reduced.”