National Assembly Delegate: People are excited about the merger of hamlets and communes

At the National Assembly forum, delegate Hoang Thi Thu Trang (Nghe An), Secretary of Nghia Dan District Party Committee, shared difficulties in the process of merging hamlets and communes.

According to Ms. Trang, people are currently very excited about the merger, "people talk about it while drinking green tea, and people talk about it while working in the fields" about the merger.

Secretary of Nghia Dan District Party Committee (Nghe An) mentioned difficulties in merging districts and communes. Photo: VH

Ms. Trang pointed out the contradiction in the regulation that requires merging hamlets and communes that do not meet the criteria for area and population, but at the same time must have the consent of the people.

“In some localities, people do not agree with the need for a merger. People think that our hamlet is fine as it is, but in terms of area and population, it does not meet the criteria. There is no consensus here, so it is very difficult to implement. If 50% of voters do not agree to the merger, we do not know how to solve it. In some localities, we have mobilized 4-5 times but voters still do not agree. We have no choice but to propagate, disseminate and mobilize,” said Ms. Trang.

According to delegate Trang, the regulations and guidelines state that when merging, it is necessary to carefully consider the specific characteristics of ethnicity, religion, terrain, and geography, but there are no regulations on what is specific, while in reality, there are many different forms.

There are places where the local authorities consider it special, but the superiors do not agree that it is special, so the localities request more specific instructions.

Affirming that this is the right policy, Ms. Trang recommends not to make absolute targets on area or population, but to consider reality.

Besides, the "fundamental problem" mentioned by delegate Hoang Thi Thu Trang is the regime and policies for redundant civil servants.

The Government issued Resolution 32/NQ-CP on the Plan to implement the arrangement of administrative units at district and commune levels in the period 2019 - 2021.

In Nghia Dan district, 3 communes have about 75 officials and civil servants; if merged into 1 commune, there will be only 21 people left, more than 50 surplus people. Only 10 people of retirement age can be mobilized, the remaining 45 surplus people are not known how to handle.

Ms. Trang said that although "Resolution 653/2019 of the National Assembly Standing Committee provides a 5-year roadmap (to resolve the surplus staff), we still find it difficult to handle this team within 5 years."

More than a week ago, on May 15, the Government issued Resolution 32/NQ-CP on the Plan to implement the arrangement of district and commune-level administrative units in the period of 2019 - 2021. Accordingly, from now until the end of the year, the whole country has about 7 months to arrange 16 districts and more than 630 communes that do not meet 50% of the criteria on area and population according to Resolution 1211 of the National Assembly Standing Committee.

Due to the urgent time, all localities are currently in a state of "running around" completing the project, sending it to competent authorities for approval, and consulting people's opinions... to be ready for arrangement.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the National Assembly, Minister of Home Affairs Le Vinh Tan said that currently only Ha Tinh (a locality with a large number of districts and communes that need to be reorganized - 88 communes and 1 district) has worked with the Ministry of Home Affairs on this issue. Since all localities have requested guidance, the Ministry of Home Affairs will send a working group to the locality to coordinate the implementation of this matter.