Need for practical and effective career transition models

(Baonghean) -With Unit 2 generating electricity at the end of February 2013, it can be said that the Hua Na Hydropower Project has been basically completed. However, a prominent issue that is of concern to the people and the government is the job conversion and life stabilization for the people...

Mr. Trinh Dinh Dung, Head of the Department of Agriculture of Que Phong district (Nghe An) said: The Hua Na Hydropower Project has 13 resettlement sites in 3 communes. According to the plan, the project will have a master plan on career conversion, each resettlement site will have a "sub-project" to support specific agricultural and forestry production to stabilize people's lives. At Pieng Cu, Tien Phong commune, the first resettlement site of the hydropower project, people have been living here for the third year, according to the roadmap in March 2012, Que Phong district issued a decision to approve the production support project for Pieng Cu resettlement site in the 2012-2 period. Then, in August 2012, the district People's Committee approved the budget estimate to support agricultural and forestry production in 2012, with the purpose of making a pilot site before deploying to other sites. The initial budget for implementing this project is about 3.33 billion VND to carry out basic items such as training on science and technology transfer, purchasing breeds, seedlings, supporting materials, etc.

Although it is only the first resettlement site, because the investor, Hua Na Hydropower Joint Stock Company, has not yet transferred the support funds, not only Pieng Cu but also other sites have not been implemented. After many times of waiting and petitioning without success, the resettled people and leaders of Que Phong district met and discussed with the investor, and at the same time petitioned the province, but there were no results.

Mr. Lo Van Din, Hua Na 2 village, builds a chicken coop.

Upon investigation, we learned that not only did the people owe the investors funds to support production and career conversion, but a considerable amount of compensation funds had not yet been fully paid back to the people. According to regulations, after relocating people to new places, in addition to residential land and garden land, each agricultural production person was assigned at least 200 square meters of rice fields and 3 hectares or more of forestry land per household. But up to this point, except for the Pieng Cu resettlement site which had been assigned agricultural and forestry land for production, the remaining sites still had no land for production?!

Every day, people have no jobs, mainly relying on relief rice to stabilize their lives, 30kg/person/month (for 4 years) and previous compensation money. In fact, to have money to cover their living expenses, people still have to go to their old place to find and exploit forest products, some others, although not yet allocated land, take advantage of slash-and-burn farming, cultivating crops near the resettlement area. Plant and animal breeds are mainly brought by people from their old place of residence.

The farm in Dong Van Resettlement Area has no breeding animals yet.

A representative of Que Phong district said: In fact, in Tien Phong and Dong Van communes (where people resettled from Hua Na Hydropower Plant) there are some business models that organize the production of incense sticks, attract labor and use local materials (lung tree, bamboo), but the scale is too small, using too little labor. A new direction that the district is encouraging people to raise fish in cages on the lake bed, everything has just begun.

The most worrying thing is that because people do not have land for production and jobs to make a living and stabilize their lives, in the long run, it will cause complications in terms of security and social order. If this situation continues, in just a few years, re-poverty will occur, leading to many other consequences. According to statistics from the district health sector, from a relatively clean area in terms of drugs, up to now, along with Tien Phong, Thong Thu, Dong Van are the communes with the most complicated developments in terms of social evils, the number of drug addicts and HIV infected people has increased rapidly in the past few years.

At a recent meeting with the Provincial People's Council's monitoring delegation, Que Phong district leaders proposed to the province. Requesting the investor to promptly return all compensation and support costs according to regulations and organize the allocation of production land and forest land to the people. Authorities at all levels should also be more drastic and closer in directing and finding models for career conversion for the people.

An officer who worked on relocation and resettlement for a number of investment projects in the district confided: To stabilize the lives of resettled people, the issue is not only to take care of food and accommodation for the people, but most importantly, to orient and open the way for people to do business. If there are no jobs, while people receive a lot of money at the same time, it is very worrying?

Most of the people here still have a mentality of waiting and relying. Some households that voluntarily resettled at Hua Na Hydropower Plant when there was a policy of vocational training and job conversion did not go to school as planned but asked to receive money to use for other purposes, then turned around and put pressure on the government, which is unacceptable.

The solution to this problem is to urgently allocate land for production to the people, immediately provide animals and seedlings, and transfer production techniques to the people. Only then will the projects and plans for career conversion and production support for resettled people be effective and practical!

Article and photos: Nguyen Hai