HANOI — Vietnam's transport minister has ordered his senior staff off the golf course, complaining that their focus on the game is hurting their work.
High-ranking officials were instructed not to play golf or organise golf tournaments but instead concentrate on their jobs, according to the transport ministry website.
The ban even includes golfing outside of office hours.
"As the country and businesses are in economic difficulties, we would do better to focus our intellect and time on our work," Transport minister Dinh La Thang was quoted in Tuoi Tre newspaper on Thursday.
Golf was once seen as a bourgeois activity in the communist country, but it has become increasingly popular among officials in recent years.
Thang, an outspoken rising star whose department faces a raft of challenges in the traffic-clogged nation, has already caused a stir with the statement, which was circulated to staff on Monday and appeared online the following day.
The ban, a rare move in a country where state officials face accusations of corruption and lack of accountability, has garnered support from the public, with a 60 percent approval rating in a survey on the VNExpress news website.
"Once a person becomes a government official, they should accept the fact that he or she may receive less benefits than an ordinary person," reader Tran Manh Ha wrote on the VNExpress forum.
But the move has also ruffled feathers, with concerns that completely prohibiting staff from playing golf amounts to an intrusion into their personal lives.
"He should stick to encouraging them not to play golf because it is a waste of time and money issuing a ban on the game during work hours," said a commentary in the Tien Phong, or Pioneer, daily newspaper.
In bbc news they said the vietnamese Minister of Transport pledge not to allow public servants who work in the Transport Department to play golf. Many vietnamese lawyers believe this it's Extreme, but the Poll in internet showing people supported this Minister. People said public servants use to complaint they have low salary compare to normal people but where do they get the money to play golf, and many viet believed because of Corruptions, that's why they have the money to play golf. Rich countries have Corporation greed corruptions, with billions and billions dollars, poor countries got corruptions money in the envelop, 50 dollars, 100 dollars something like that. Everywhere.
