Minister of the Interior: 'If we reduce salaries by 50%, it would be a great relief for civil servants!'

“If the number of civil servants is reduced by 50%, there will be no need to worry about salaries. But with only 600,000 civil servants, it is not much.”

Minister of Home Affairs Le Vinh Tan cited example data when talking to the press on the sidelines of the National Assembly about streamlining the payroll associated with restructuring the team, organization, and rearranging functions... which will be a good basis for salary reform, without worrying about the insurance fund going bankrupt instead of raising the issue of increasing the retirement age.

PV:Regarding the proposal to raise the retirement age for civil servants to 60-62, can you give your opinion on this issue?

Minister Le Vinh Tan:The Ministry of Home Affairs also encourages early retirement because it is implementing a streamlining project to restructure the staff of cadres, civil servants, and public employees.

My point of view is that we must comply with the provisions of the Labor Code, which stipulates that the retirement age for men is 60 and for women is 55. It is also important that we must comply with Resolution 39 of the Politburo on streamlining the payroll and restructuring the civil servant and public employee apparatus.

Doing so will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the State administrative apparatus and solve the problem of mechanisms for salary increase.

Minister of Home Affairs Le Vinh Tan

Minister Le Vinh Tan:The average life expectancy of Vietnamese people is now over 73 years old. The explanation above is based on each person's point of view, and the calculation given is by the fund management agency.PV:In your opinion, is the reason for increasing the retirement age to avoid the risk of pension fund bankruptcy reasonable and convincing?

I still believe that we must keep the Labor Code and implement Resolution 39 correctly to solve the salary problem, without worrying about the fund going bankrupt. And this problem cannot be solved by increasing the retirement age.

PV:However, streamlining the payroll only targets the group of civil servants nearing retirement age, so it won't reduce much budget spending on salaries, sir?

Minister Le Vinh Tan:The content of Resolution 39 of the Politburo is to streamline the payroll associated with restructuring the team of civil servants and public employees, but in fact, for a long time we have only focused on streamlining without considering restructuring the team, organization, rearranging overlapping functions, and properly structuring the job positions and titles of civil servants.

Only by doing so can we find the target of streamlining. Streamlining these are people who do not meet the conditions, are not healthy enough, and need to be arranged for other work, not just those who do not have enough income so they cannot be streamlined.

Streamlining in accordance with the process and ratio according to Decree 188 of the Prime Minister is an average reduction of 5% per year. This year, the Ministry of Home Affairs has assigned early staffing quotas to ministries, branches, central agencies, and socio-political organizations - organizations with staffing assigned by the State.

The Ministry has signed the document to hand over early in accordance with the spirit of Resolution 39. This year, there is no situation like in previous years where the assignment is made after the Provincial People's Council meeting, because that way, how can people have a basis to organize the apparatus in combination with the budget?

That's how I solve the salary problem. Now there are 2.1 million civil servants. If we can reduce 50% of them by socializing or giving autonomy, we won't have to worry about salaries. That would be a big relief. As for civil servants, we currently only have over 600,000 people from commune level and above, which is not a lot.

But now the socialization and mobilization of units in the spirit of autonomy is too slow, so it will be calculated step by step. In 2017, the Government assigned the Ministry of Home Affairs to do the advisory work and will calculate the roadmap to socialize this work. The spirit is to do it in accordance with the provisions of the law and the leadership direction of the Party.

PV:As the Minister analyzed, the restructuring of the apparatus has not been implemented but we still have to consider increasing the basic salary, as planned for next year to increase to 1.3 million VND/month?

Minister Le Vinh Tan: We must resolutely restructure to identify the targets for streamlining, and only when we streamline can we significantly reform salaries.

This year, the issue of increasing civil servant salaries has been discussed back and forth, from one option to another, but in the end, we only chose the option of increasing by 7%. And in fact, we are "in debt" up to 16% because the budget is not guaranteed and cannot be balanced.

Without promoting streamlining of staff combined with autonomy and socialization, salary reform is impossible.

PV:Thank you, Minister!./.

According to VOV.VN