Ha Tinh province

The inspection team of Ha Tinh province determined that the management and organization of activities at Cho Cui Temple national relic (Xuan Hong commune, Nghi Xuan district, Ha Tinh province) had many shortcomings. In particular, the collection, expenditure and management of merit money, sponsorship money, and offerings are not transparent.

According to the inspection conclusion of the People’s Committee of Ha Tinh province, Cho Cui Temple is a relic ranked by the Ministry of Culture and Information (now the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism) as a national historical architectural and artistic relic in 1993. Cho Cui Temple is a unique and ancient architectural work built during the Early Le Dynasty, located at the foot of Ngu Ma Mountain on the banks of the Lam River.

Through inspection, in the period before 2013, this relic operated according to the people’s spontaneous beliefs, self-managed by the People’s Committee of Xuan Hong commune and a number of households around the temple area. The collection, expenditure and management of merit compensation money is mainly done by incense sticks.

In 2011, Nghi Xuan District People’s Committee established the Cho Cui Temple Relics Management Board, but it did not operate regularly but assigned all daily management of the temple to the family of the temple incense burners to facilitate the restoration of the relics.

Therefore, the locality does not know the specifics and cannot manage the revenue from the relics due to the people across the country’s merits, offerings, offerings, and the use of that funding source is not clear and transparent.

By 2014, Ha Tinh approved the project to manage and organize activities at Cho Cui temple relics. Immediately after the project was issued, Nghi Xuan District People’s Committee re-established the Cho Cui Temple Relics Management Board under the District People’s Committee (a revenue-generating public service unit with its own seal and account).

The total amount of funding collected by the Relics Management Board from 2014 to 2022 is more than 19 billion VND. Of which, the donation fee paid by the families of incense makers Nguyen Sy Quy and Mr. Nguyen Sy Hoa is 17.9 billion VND.

The inspection conclusion affirmed: “The Relic Management Board does not directly participate in monitoring and inventorying merit income sources but completely entrusts the incense maker’s family to do so, so it is not possible to grasp the actual data of revenues, Expenses. This leads to financial and accounting data being scattered across many bookkeeping systems…”

Accordingly, Mr. Nguyen Hai Nam – former Chairman of Nghi Xuan District People’s Committee committed a violation when organizing a meeting to agree on merit payment in 2016 without the participation of relevant departments and branches. Directly sign the collection and payment of merit money at the Cho Cui Temple Relics Management Board in 2018 for 2.5 billion VND and hand over and pay the merit money at the Cho Cui Temple Relics Management Board for 2019 for 2.5 billion VND is not consistent with the content of allocating merit money according to Project 1177 of the Provincial People’s Committee.

Mr. Tran Vu Quang, Nguyen Long Thien, Dau Dinh Ha (former Head of the Management Board of Cho Cui Temple) are responsible to the District People’s Committee for managing, protecting and promoting the value of the relic. However, failure to properly demonstrate assigned roles, functions and tasks led to many inadequacies in activities at the monument, leading to many complaints and feedback from people.

For incense-burning families, it is requested to end the possession and management of the internal temple area of Cho Cui temple and hand it over to the Management Board of public services and tourist attractions of Nghi Xuan district no later than the 15th. /first.

If the incense making families do not hand over on time, the People’s Committee of Nghi Xuan district is assigned to organize the enforcement of the handover and manage the entire Cho Cui temple relic in accordance with the law.