People directly listen to the National Assembly discuss "spending money"

On the morning of October 23, the fourth session of the 14th National Assembly - a session with many contents related to budget spending - opened in Hanoi.

On the opening day, the National Assembly will hear a report on the results of the implementation of the 2017 state budget, the state budget estimate, the central budget allocation plan for 2018, and the 3-year national state budget-finance plan for 2018-2020.

In the following days, there were also many issues related to the national budget that the delegates had to discuss and decide.

The fourth session takes place from October 23 to November 24, the National Assembly will have to decide on "spending money" more than once.

» Full text of the opening speech of the 4th session of National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan

That is the feasibility study report for the land acquisition, compensation, support and resettlement project of Long Thanh International Airport. According to the Government's report, in the immediate future, in the period up to 2020, the capital demand for the project is about 10,821.6 billion VND. Up to now, the project has only allocated 5,000 billion VND from government bonds, so it is necessary to continue to supplement capital sources.

That is the resolution on the mechanism and development policy of Ho Chi Minh City, of course it cannot be unrelated to the financial mechanism.

There is also a policy to invest in the construction of some expressway sections on the North-South Eastern route in the 2017-2020 period with an estimated total capital of about VND130,216 billion, of which the state support capital is VND55,000 billion. The source of capital mobilized outside the budget is very large, but capital mobilization has many potential risks, according to the National Assembly's Economic Committee.

A new point of this session is that budget issues are discussed together with socio-economic issues, instead of separately as in previous sessions. Discussion time also increased to 2.5 days, half a day longer than previous sessions.

National Assembly Secretary General Nguyen Hanh Phuc, at a press conference before the session, emphasized that this was the first time the budget discussion session was broadcast live. According to Mr. Phuc, through this, people will be able to easily monitor the allocation of their tax contributions.

Very touching on people's pocketbooks, that is the exploitation of BOT traffic works.

Some delegates suggested that the National Assembly should discuss in the hall instead of sending National Assembly delegates to study the report on the results of thematic supervision of the implementation of policies and laws on investment and exploitation of traffic works under the form of build-operate-transfer (BOT) contracts.

Fourth session, 14th National Assembly.

However, this proposal is unlikely to become a reality, although this is still an issue of great concern to voters and delegates. In a report sent to National Assembly delegates, the State Audit said that through auditing 22 projects, it recommended reducing the toll collection period by 62 years and 8 months, corresponding to a reduction in revenue of VND22,237.6 billion.

The State Audit also pointed out many completely not new issues in budget spending in 2017. For example, the 2017 investment capital plan also allocated capital for a number of projects that did not meet the criteria and principles of Resolution No. 60 of the Government.

Notably, the progress of disbursement of capital for basic construction investment is low. In the first 9 months of the year, the estimated expenditure from the State budget reached 53.1% of the estimate, the lowest compared to the same period in the last 2 years (2015: 64.8%; 2016: 54.5%).

In particular, the disbursement rate of government bond capital in the first 9 months of 2017 was very low, only reaching about 7% of the estimate (same period in 2015: 52.3%; 2016: 38.8%), while the mobilization rate of government bonds was high. By the end of September 2017, 148.2 trillion VND of government bonds had been issued, equal to 80.8% of the total expected issuance volume of 183.3 trillion VND, with an average interest rate of about 6.1%/year).

That, according to the State Audit, shows that a large amount of surplus money is stagnant in the State Treasury while the Government still has to pay interest on mobilized funds. The slow disbursement negatively impacts growth, while wasting capital mobilized from government bonds, and the efficiency of using budget capital is not high.

There are many other budget issues that will give people's representatives a headache when public debt reaches the ceiling, the central budget is likely to have a deficit and tax debt is still a huge number (73.9 trillion VND).

In that context, publicly discussing money spending for public scrutiny is perhaps what the people expect. But what is more expected, as Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stated upon taking office, is "the need to be responsible for every penny of the people's tax money."

According to vneconomy