Minister of Home Affairs: Building a framework for merging departments and branches must be based on specific factors

Immediately after the meeting of the Head of the Central Organizing Committee Pham Minh Chinh, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh with relevant ministries on the arrangement and organization of the political system yesterday afternoon, Minister of Home Affairs Le Vinh Tan said that this meeting has not yet finalized the final plan on the arrangement of specialized agencies under the People's Committees at the provincial and district levels (merging departments, branches, and offices).

Minister of Home Affairs Le Vinh Tan. Photo: Minh Dat

The meeting mainly listened to comments from the Central Organizing Committee and ministries to complete the draft amendments to Decrees 24 and 37 regulating the organization of specialized agencies under the People's Committees at provincial and district levels and related documents.

At the end of the meeting, Head of the Central Organizing Committee Pham Minh Chinh and Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh concluded a number of contents to continue editing the drafts.

“Tomorrow I will continue working with the Department of Organization and Personnel. Next week, I will invite the agencies of the National Assembly, the Organization Committee, the Government Office and the Ministry of Home Affairs to agree once again to send to the Ministry of Justice for appraisal. We will try to complete the drafts to submit to the Government as soon as possible,” said the Minister of Home Affairs.

Consider specific factors

According to the Minister, the arrangement and merger of departments and offices has been discussed by the Politburo but no specific regulations have been issued.

The Politburo requires that the arrangement of specialized agencies under the People's Committees at provincial and district levels must adhere to the resolutions of the Central Committee, the resolutions of the National Assembly and the actual conditions of each locality to have specific regulations. For example, classifying provinces, urban areas and rural areas appropriately.

Minister Le Vinh Tan affirmed that the general spirit is that the arrangement and merger of departments and offices will consider the specific factors of each locality to come up with a reasonable framework, not organize the same level as at present.

Recently, many localities have merged and consolidated a number of departments and branches.

Specifically: Lao Cai merged the Department of Transport and the Department of Construction into the Department of Transport - Construction; Ha Giang merged the Provincial Party Committee's Organization Board with the Department of Home Affairs, the Provincial Party Committee's Inspection Committee with the Provincial Inspectorate; Hai Phong merged a series of party agencies with the government at the district level...

In early December 2018, Minister of Home Affairs Le Vinh Tan signed a document sent to the People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities requesting to temporarily suspend the arrangement of departments and offices to wait for the Government's decrees.

According to the draft released by the Ministry of Home Affairs for comments in April 2018, the specialized agencies under the Provincial People's Committee will only keep 4 Departments: Justice, Natural Resources and Environment, Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, and Health, which are organized uniformly throughout the country. The remaining 17 departments and branches will be merged and consolidated; reducing 46 - 88 departments and branches.

Some departments proposed by the Ministry of Home Affairs to merge include: Planning and Investment and Finance to be called the Department of Finance - Planning; Transport and Construction to be the Department of Transport - Construction; Agriculture and Rural Development to be called the Department of Industry and Trade; Science and Technology to be called the Department of Education and Training...