Minister of Home Affairs: Merging provinces before September, arranging communes before July
Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra said it is expected to complete the arrangement of commune-level administrative units before June 30, and the merger of provinces will be completed before August 30.
On March 18, at the first meeting of the Government's Steering Committee on science, technology, innovation, digital transformation and Project 06, Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra shared the results of administrative reform in 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.
Regarding the reform of the organizational apparatus, Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that this is truly a revolution in the entire political system. In recent times, our administrative system has achieved very positive results, creating a solid foundation for further development.
Regarding ministries and ministerial-level agencies, we now have only 17 ministries and ministerial-level agencies, having reduced 5 ministries and 3 agencies under the Government. The internal organizational structure of ministries and ministerial-level agencies has been significantly streamlined with a reduction of 13 general departments, 519 departments, 219 departments, and 3,303 branches.
Regarding the results after the reorganization, the number of staff in ministries and branches decreased by about 22,300 people (reaching 20%). Ministries, branches and localities basically used the assigned staff correctly.
For localities, according to the general direction of the Government, 63 provinces and cities have reduced 343 specialized agencies and equivalents under the provincial People's Committee, reaching a rate of 29%, along with 1,454 specialized agencies under the district People's Committee (a reduction of 17.5%).
At the meeting, Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra also proposed 8 tasks for administrative reform from now until the end of 2025. Notably, it is focusing on arranging provincial-level administrative units, reorganizing commune-level administrative units and organizing 2-level local governments to ensure prudence, thoroughness, urgency and efficiency.
"It is expected that the entire arrangement of commune-level administrative units will be completed before June 30 so that by July 1, commune-level administrative units will operate under the new organization.
We will also focus on completing the merger of provincial administrative units before August 30 so that we can immediately start operating provincial administrative units starting from September 1," Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra informed.
The Minister said that the process of organizing a two-level local government is being implemented very urgently with the spirit of "running and queuing at the same time".
Identifying this as an extremely important and urgent task, the Ministry of Home Affairs hopes to receive close coordination from all relevant ministries and branches to promptly guide localities to effectively carry out this important task.
The Minister also mentioned strengthening law enforcement and administrative discipline; seriously and effectively implementing new mechanisms and policies in the management of cadres, civil servants and public employees.
"In the near future, the Law on Cadres and Civil Servants will be amended to improve management work, while also meeting the requirements for interconnectivity between communal-level cadres and civil servants with provincial-level civil servants and above," said Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra.
