Minister, Head of the Government Office: 'If you make a mistake, admit it, don't blame it on the typist'

Minister, Chairman of the Government Office, Head of the Prime Minister's Working Group Mai Tien Dung chaired the meeting. (Photo: Duong Giang/VNA)

On December 13, at the Government Office, the Prime Minister's Working Group inspected the implementation of the 2019 Work Program of 9 ministries, including Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs; Industry and Trade; Public Security; Culture, Sports and Tourism, Foreign Affairs; Planning and Investment; Finance; Education and Training; Information and Communications. Minister, Head of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung, Head of the Working Group, chaired the meeting.

Minister Mai Tien Dung said that there are only 17 days left until the end of 2019, but there are still many programs and projects that are delayed, and if not done quickly, they will become overdue. In the 2019 work program, the Prime Minister assigned ministries and branches to develop and submit to the Government and the Prime Minister 511 projects, of which 390 projects have been submitted (197 projects have been issued), 121 projects have not been submitted, of which 41 projects are overdue, and 80 other projects are about to expire on December 31. Of these, 9 ministries participating in the meeting have a total of 251 assigned projects, owing 71 projects and programs, of which 29 projects are overdue.

The Minister pointed out that the Ministries of Planning and Investment and Finance were assigned a large number of projects but the arrears rate was low, while there were ministries assigned very few but the arrears rate was very high, such as the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs with 20 programs and projects, but arrears on 5 projects, accounting for 25%; the Ministry of Information and Communications was assigned 35 projects, currently arrears on 18 projects, accounting for 51%. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism was assigned 13 projects, but arrears on 4 projects, accounting for 30.7%...

Minister, Chairman of the Government Office, Head of the Prime Minister's Working Group Mai Tien Dung chaired the meeting. Photo: Duong Giang/VNA

In 2019, the above ministries had to issue 56 detailed regulations, currently 45 have been issued, 11 documents are outstanding, the Ministry of Public Security alone owes 6 documents (including 2 documents related to the Law on Cyber ​​Security), the Ministry of Industry and Trade still has 3, the Ministry of Education and Training still has 1 document. Regarding the tasks assigned by the Government, the 9 ministries have 2,412 tasks, of which 1,199 have been completed, 1,223 tasks are outstanding, of which 1,163 tasks are within the deadline, 50 tasks are overdue, accounting for 2.7%, while the national average, the overdue debt rate is only 0.57%.

“These are the ministries with the most overdue debts, including outstanding documents to be issued, projects, work programs, and tasks,” the Minister pointed out.

“We affirm that the assigned tasks cannot be left unfinished, and no task is left undone, except for overdue documents with reasonable reasons,” the Minister stated, adding that all of these programs and projects are proposals from the ministries, which have carefully prepared their work programs and are completely proactive, so there is no reason to talk about the issue of time delay.

According to the Minister, the Prime Minister always requires ministers to directly direct and take responsibility for the progress and quality of the work program, always reminding the working group to urge and monitor the implementation process of the ministries to report at the regular Government meeting. The quality of the work program reflects the quality of the mechanism and policy. Projects and programs have a large scope of impact, so the Prime Minister requires that the project must be of quality.

Explaining the fact that there are 18 outstanding documents and projects, of which only 10 projects have been committed to be completed in the last days of this year, and the rest have been postponed to 2020, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Pham Hong Hai said that the projects and documents have been postponed to 2020 because the content of the projects is closely related to reality such as auction activities, transfer of rights to use telecommunications numbers, internet domain names, radio frequencies, etc. This content is awaiting approval from the Prime Minister or there are projects that need to refer to international experience to complete, and cannot be completed in 2019.

Not satisfied with the explanation of the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Head of the Working Group cited the Decree amending and supplementing Article 3 of Decree No. 02/2018/ND-CP regulating the functions, tasks, powers and organizational structure of Vietnam Television, which has expired for 167 days, and now the Ministry has asked to postpone it to the first quarter of 2020. The Head of the Working Group asked: "What is the problem that has caused the delay, postponement, and not yet submitted to the Government?"

Minister Mai Tien Dung analyzed that Vietnam Television is a unit that has been completely financially autonomous for a long time, so the issues of apparatus, organization, and personnel also need to be created conditions for the unit to decide for itself.

“I know that the proposal on this issue has been raised for a long time. The Television Station wants to create an open mechanism, but we want to pull the power back to the ministry and “take” everything, which is probably not good. I have heard it once, the ministry’s viewpoint is different from the Radio Station’s. The Radio Station wants to be autonomous and responsible, so we have to create an open mechanism so that they can be autonomous and make their own decisions on recruitment and organization. If the Radio Station proactively proposes, it should be submitted to relevant agencies to report to the Prime Minister so that they can make an early decision,” Minister Mai Tien Dung said frankly.

He also held the Department of State Administration and Public Affairs (Government Office) responsible for submitting documents without specifying a deadline. “If you make a mistake, admit it, don’t blame the clerk or typist,” said the head of the Prime Minister’s Working Group.

Explaining further, Deputy Minister Pham Hong Hai affirmed that the content of this adjustment document with Vietnam Television is only about the mechanism and organization of the unit, the Ministry of Information and Communications has no opinion on the content, it is just a matter of process and procedure that slows down the progress. Deputy Minister Hai explained that according to regulations, the changed information must be publicly posted on the ministry's website for 60 days to be eligible to receive comments from the Ministry of Justice, after which the Ministry of Information and Communications will complete it to submit to the Government. Currently, the ministry is still waiting for the 60-day deadline to expire.

To avoid the document to resolve this issue from being prolonged beyond the deadline, the Deputy Minister of Information and Communications promised to urge the Ministry's Department of Organization and Personnel to closely coordinate with the unit to adjust and complete the process, and try to submit it by the end of December, not to let it drag on into 2020.

Resolutely requesting the Ministry of Information and Communications to direct the focus on completing the projects, the Head of the Working Group affirmed that the Government Office only agreed to postpone one project of the ministry to 2020, while the other projects of the ministry must be completed in 2019. "Unconvincing reasons cannot be accepted", he said and suggested that ministries learn from the experience of the Ministry of Information and Communications, in 2020, they must build a solid work program; the Department of State Administrative Organization and Public Service should soon meet with the Ministry of Information and Communications, Vietnam Television to completely amend Article 3, Decree 02, and remove obstacles for the unit.

The Minister also mentioned that when the radar product was imported to the port, two ministries, Information and Communications and Transport, came down to inspect it. The customs agreed to clear the goods, just waiting for the ministry to sign, while there was no computer room to test, the product could not be inspected. The Minister said that we should not encroach on the market, "just dragging it around to the ministry is not allowed, it is very beneficial, we cannot let people waste time and money".

Concluding the working session, Minister Mai Tien Dung, Head of the Prime Minister's Working Group, reiterated the spirit of the ministries that they need to be determined to carry out their tasks, not to let them be overdue. "The end of 2019 is almost here, we will not raise the issue of withdrawal anymore, because it is overdue, accepting the overdue to see that the evaluation during the implementation of tasks can be evaluated by telling data. If we cannot do it until the deadline, we will ask to withdraw, now we are rushing by not doing it (but) withdrawing, when the competition is called, we say we will not compete, we ask for a stomachache but our stomach does not hurt, that is not right", said the Minister./.