National Assembly delegates debate auction of beautiful license plates

This morning, May 25, the National Assembly began a one-and-a-half-day discussion session on the socio-economic situation and budget.

Auction of beautiful license plates is still too limited

In his first speech, delegate Nguyen Van Canh (Binh Dinh) mentioned the policy of auctioning beautiful license plates - an issue that this delegate personally pursued in previous sessions and has been implemented by the Ministry of Public Security.

However, Mr. Canh said that the current regulations only auction a very small percentage of license plates in the existing license plate warehouse. If the regulations are strict and the number of license plates auctioned is expanded, the amount of money collected could be 10 times higher than at present, and each year the budget could collect 5,000 billion VND.

Giving this example, Mr. Canh assessed that it is a manifestation of waste when the policy does not fully exploit resources and collect the budget.

Delegate Nguyen Van Canh also proposed a regulation allowing people who have bid for a beautiful license plate to keep that license plate for the next car.

Also in his speech, the Binh Dinh delegate proposed that the National Assembly proceed with the development of the Law on Prevention of Treason as a concretization of Article 44 of the 2013 Constitution: "Citizens have the duty to be loyal to the Fatherland. Treason is the most serious crime."

Delegate Nguyen Thanh Hong. Photo: VTV

Raising his sign to debate with delegate Canh, delegate Nguyen Thanh Hong (Binh Duong) said that some countries have allowed auctions of license plates.

"However, license plates are a state management tool. Although they can be auctioned for money, they should not be auctioned and many countries do not allow the auction of license plates," Mr. Hong expressed his opinion.

"The concept of good and bad numbers also changes over time. According to calculations by delegate Canh, it is possible to auction thousands of billions, but that is just an assumed number and money is not easily available for the budget."

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Hong also said that it is not necessary to build a Law on preventing treason, because the Constitution clearly stipulates that treason is a very serious act and the criminal law has detailed regulations.

Delegate Nguyen Van Canh (middle). Photo: VTV

"I wish morality was like in the old days"

Delegates shared their appreciation for the Government's direction and administration, demonstrated through impressive economic growth in the first quarter of 2018.

"After those achievements, the people's trust index has gradually increased, and the Government has also learned many lessons," said delegate Nguyen Huu Cau (Nghe An). "However, voters demand that the National Assembly and the Government direct more quickly, more extensively, and more decisively the pressing issues that are being raised."

Nghe An delegates are particularly concerned about the issue of moral degradation, discipline, and lax enforcement of the law.

"Recently, there have been shocking stories that have caused public outrage, such as burning bamboo charcoal to make medicine to treat cancer, teachers punishing students by making them drink water used to clean blackboards... School violence, violence in hospitals, mass murders, and many other shocking stories," Mr. Cau pointed out.

Voters are worried and think that "I wish that economic and material life could be like today, and social morality could be like in the past", and hope that the National Assembly and the Government will have strong solutions to punish, prevent, and repel the above "diseases" as quickly as possible.

Delegate Nguyen Huu Cau. Photo: VTV

Mr. Nguyen Van Cau said that voters are excited about the results of the recent fight against corruption but are still concerned about the huge waste of the state budget, especially in the fields of land and basic construction.

"The situation of allocating land to investors to carry out large projects but leaving them unimplemented for many years causes waste. The situation of suspended projects still happens a lot, speculation, and choosing prime land only brings benefits to individuals, while the State suffers great losses," said Mr. Cau.

"In basic construction, voters said that if they built a house with the same design, people would only spend 650 million, while the government would spend 1 billion, but the quality and aesthetics would not be as good as people's houses."

According to the Nghe An delegate, the poor management situation, causing waste and loss like 12 big projects is a clear example. Recently, there have been more problems surrounding BOT, BT projects, and enterprise equitization, especially the dredging project to build the Sao Khe river embankment in Ninh Binh, which was adjusted to increase 36 times, from 72 billion to 2,595 billion VND.