'There are villages that owe money to restaurants and karaoke bars and can't pay it back.'

Regarding the Ministry of Finance's pilot program of contracting out official vehicles to deputy ministers, in an interview with Dan Viet, Dr. Le Dang Doanh stated that the Ministry of Finance's spirit of saving budget resources is highly commendable and appreciated.

However, the practice of calculating allowances based on distance between the workplace and residence needs further discussion and debate to ensure it is truly encouraging and fair to different users.

Mandatory contracting of official vehicles would be more effective than the previous voluntary contracting system used by the National Assembly Office, which yielded no results and had few participants.

Mr. Le Dang Doanh also stated that the misuse of government vehicles is currently very serious, with some people even lending their vehicles to others when traveling abroad. This incident highlights the need for a serious crackdown on budget abuse.

"Currently, compared to budget spending in other countries, our country's spending is extremely arbitrary and wasteful, with abuse for personal expenses. As recently reported, some communes owe money to restaurants and karaoke bars and are unable to pay, which are very unreasonable expenditures," Mr. Doanh emphasized.

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According to Mr. Doanh, in other countries, the amount of money that can and cannot be spent is very clearly defined. For example, when one minister invites another minister, the maximum amount spent is also specified. Furthermore, it must be strictly prohibited for officials to invite guests and then have businesses pay for the expenses; that kind of corruption is very clear and unacceptable.

Mr. Le Dang Doanh also suggested that a general fixed rate should be established, as overly specific rates would require frequent revisions. He argued that using distance as a basis for calculating fixed expenses for leaders is overly detailed and difficult to calculate, especially considering factors like traffic congestion – how would one even factor in determining costs?

Sharing the same view, Mr. Nguyen Hoang Hai – Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Financial Investors (VAFI) – stated: It is unclear whether the Ministry of Finance only provides a fixed allowance for commuting from home to work each month, or for all travel expenses of the deputy ministers.

The image is for illustrative purposes only.

What about business trips? Will they still use official vehicles? While leaders frequently travel on business, using private cars during those trips doesn't reduce the number of official vehicles. It means they still have to use official vehicles, still have to pay for maintenance, repairs, and driver salaries. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance previously stated that each vehicle costs an average of over 300 million VND per year. "The goal of the fixed budget is to reduce the number of vehicles and actually reduce costs for the state budget," Mr. Hai said.

Associate Professor Dr. Dinh Trong Thinh (Finance Academy) believes that this is a very big problem today, not a minor one. Currently, a large number of officials in ministries, departments, and localities are entitled to private transportation. Therefore, the number of official vehicles in Vietnam, according to statistics, reaches 40,000. The costs of maintenance, servicing, and drivers amount to tens of thousands of billions of dong each year.

If the Ministry of Finance implements a pilot program for vehicle allocation, the cost of commuting from home to work would range from 4-9 million VND per month. "Although it's just a trial run, I think this is a very bold approach. Hopefully, it will be successful so that it can be widely applied to other agencies and ministries to reduce state budget costs," Mr. Thinh said.

Mr. Thinh also said that in the past, there had been a trial with a fixed allowance of 9 million VND in 2006, but many people still did not participate because the allowance was voluntary. "The main reason is that using a government vehicle with a blue license plate is 'more prestigious' and offers more privileges, while using a taxi adds complications, so many leaders did not support it," Mr. Thinh explained.

Mr. Thinh also argued that the focus should shift from reducing spending on official vehicles to gradually implementing a more comprehensive and economical approach to the state budget, rather than continuing the wasteful spending seen in the past. He pointed out that currently, 70-80% of Vietnam's spending is recurrent expenditure, with only 20% allocated to development, which presents a significant challenge.

According to danviet