Minister of Planning and Investment takes responsibility for arranging investment capital that is still scattered.

The question-and-answer session of Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung was heated from the start when more than 50 delegates registered to ask questions. The questions focused on the efficiency of investment capital from the state budget, implementation of medium-term and annual public investment plans, and shortcomings in FDI projects...

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung answers questions from National Assembly deputies.

In response to delegates' demands for responsibility in controlling and avoiding waste in public investment and outstanding debts in basic construction, Minister Nguyen Chi Dung accepted responsibility.

The Minister said that in the past, the legal management system was not strict, so the efficiency of using public investment capital was not guaranteed, leading to scattered investment, large outstanding debts in basic construction and approved projects exceeding the capital arrangement capacity. Usually, it was 3 times higher than the capital arrangement capacity and this has been happening for a long time.

“To overcome this situation, the Law on Public Investment has been issued with stricter procedures from project selection to approval and appraisal to control, avoid dispersion, and avoid capital construction debt. However, when implementing this Law, we have observed that there are still projects that are not being arranged in a concentrated manner due to the huge investment demand but our ability to arrange capital is lower, so the allocation of ministries, branches and localities has not been focused,” the Minister explained.

According to the Minister, this has led to slow annual capital allocation. The Minister explained that the 5-year annual capital allocation has been clearly stipulated in the Law on Public Investment, but this is the first year of implementing the Law on Public Investment with the objectives of the Law being to closely inspect projects and accordingly, the procedural steps are stricter, more numerous and the participating agencies are also more integrated, and therefore the implementation of procedures according to the new law by ministries and local branches is still confusing in the beginning.

Second, the guidance from ministries, including the Ministry of Planning and Investment, is not timely, slow, and has different interpretations. "Because of the large demand and limited capital arrangement capacity, such imbalances have forced us to adjust and adjust different plans, leading to delays in capital allocation compared to reality, which partly affects the slow disbursement and affects the effectiveness of the project," said the Minister.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment accepted responsibility for not being resolute in requesting local ministries and branches to seriously implement the provisions of the law and the Government's directives, and for being lenient when seeing that the needs of localities are large but the ability to allocate capital is not yet appropriate, so the plans are repeated and adjusted over and over again, so they are not seriously implemented, and for being lenient when sharing difficulties with local ministries and branches more. "We accept that responsibility and promise the National Assembly that we must still seriously implement the Law on Public Investment but still create favorable conditions for local ministries and branches to perform their tasks," the Minister accepted responsibility.

According to Kinhtedothi.vn