Ban Mong Reservoir (Yen Hop Commune, Quy Hop District) has a capacity of 225 million m3is a national key project, of special importance to the lives of people in the Western Nghe An region and part of Nhu Xuan district, Thanh Hoa province.
This is the largest irrigation project in the North Central region, started in May 2010, invested by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). However, after more than a decade, this project has not been completed. One of the reasons for the project being prolonged, behind schedule, not being completed completely, causing waste is due to the allocation of public investment capital being spread out, fragmented, and not focused on key points.
Faced with that situation, on July 26, 2022, a working delegation of the National Assembly's Committee on Science, Technology and Environment, led by Vice Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Le Thuy, directly surveyed the project. On October 17, 2022, the Committee on Science, Technology and Environment sent a report on the monitoring results to the National Assembly and relevant ministries and localities. The report clearly stated that the biggest problem is that from 2021 to now, capital has not been allocated to complete the project's objectives.
On October 31, 2022, at the 4th Session, the 15th National Assembly listened to a summary report on the results of the thematic supervision of the Supervisory Delegation and discussed in the hall on the supreme supervision of the topic "Implementation of policies and laws on practicing thrift and combating waste in the period 2016-2021, the previous and subsequent periods". The progress of the Ban Mong Reservoir project heated up the parliament when the National Assembly's Supervisory Delegation named it as one of 52 projects and clusters of public investment projects and other ineffective use of State capital.
Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly's Committee on Science, Technology and Environment Nguyen Thi Le Thuy said: The Ban Mong Reservoir Project in Nghe An province was built in the hometown of President Ho Chi Minh. Up to now, it has gone through 3 terms of Prime Minister and 3 terms of Minister but is still not completed.
Through the understanding from the supervision and contact with voters of the National Assembly Delegation of Nghe An province, Major General Tran Duc Thuan - Standing Member of the National Defense and Security Committee of the National Assembly, delegate of Nghe An delegation "impatiently" spoke at Dien Hong Hall: "I agree with the Committee on Science - Technology and Environment, requesting the Government to urgently remove difficulties, determine the authority to approve project adjustments and supplements, promptly arrange capital to continue construction and complete the project as soon as possible, to minimize waste of State assets and difficulties for people living around the project".
The most important reason for the delay in allocating capital for the project is due to the “legal gap”. The National Assembly’s Committee on Science, Technology and Environment said: At the time the project was permitted for investment by the Prime Minister (in 2006) and approved for investment by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (in 2009), the Law on Public Investment had not yet been issued. When the National Assembly issued the Law on Public Investment in 2014 and the Law on Public Investment in 2019 (amended), the transitional provisions also did not have regulations on the authority to decide on additional funding adjustments for the case of the Ban Mong Reservoir Project.
After the reports of the National Assembly's Committee on Science, Technology and Environment and the opinions of the National Assembly delegates of Nghe An delegation reflected at the National Assembly sessions, the "legal gap" for the Ban Mong Reservoir project has been resolved. Most recently, on October 26, 2023, in Decision No. 1248/QD-TTg, the Prime Minister approved the adjustment of the investment policy for the Ban Mong Reservoir Project, Phase 1, in which the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was assigned to review and balance within the total capital source of the medium-term public investment plan for the period 2021 - 2025 that has been assigned, allocating an additional VND 234 billion to have enough capital for phase 1 of VND 5,552 trillion to complete the project on schedule in 2025.
Another example shows that through supervision, the National Assembly delegates of Nghe An delegation contribute to building National Assembly policies suitable to the reality of each locality, which is the National Assembly's agreement to assign the Government to consider and decide on the allocation from the central budget reserve in 2023 in accordance with the provisions of law to continue implementing, soon completing and putting into use the Nam Mo River embankment project, section through block 4, block 5, Muong Xen town, Ky Son district, in the Resolution on the State budget estimate for 2024 approved by the 15th National Assembly at the 6th Session on the morning of November 10, 2023.
This is an extremely necessary and urgent project to limit the consequences of natural disasters and floods, making an important contribution to ensuring the safety of lives and property for households, protecting economic and social infrastructure works in the area; at the same time, contributing to the successful implementation of 3 national target programs in the poor mountainous district of Ky Son.
Previously, the Nghe An National Assembly Delegation had proposed that the National Assembly allow an extension of the implementation period and disbursement of VND 98,533 billion, so that the project could continue to be implemented and completed, meeting the expectations of voters and local people. Because the delay in disbursing the above capital source stemmed from objective, force majeure reasons. That was the night of October 1 and the morning of October 2, 2022, a terrible flash flood occurred in Ky Son district. In just a moment, part of Ta Ca commune and Muong Xen town (Ky Son) turned into flat land with mud, soil, and rocks.
The consequences of the flash flood have led to changes in the Nam Mo river basin, so the feasible design plan previously submitted for appraisal by the People's Committee of Ky Son district is no longer suitable for the current situation on both sides of the river where the project is implemented. Therefore, relevant units must re-survey the current situation, re-evaluate the complexity of the flow, the level of danger of flash floods in the context of climate change to come up with a new design plan. To date, all investment preparation procedures have been completed.
Chairman of the People's Committee of Ky Son district Nguyen Viet Hung shared: The National Assembly's decision to allow allocation from the central budget reserve in 2023 to continue implementation is very suitable to the practical situation at the grassroots level, showing the depth, listening and understanding of the feelings of voters of Ky Son - one of the 74 poor districts in the country.
Concerned with the shortcomings in the socio-economic development policy in mountainous areas, on October 30, 2023, at the discussion session at Dien Hong Hall (6th session, 15th National Assembly), delegate Tran Nhat Minh, Nghe An delegation made recommendations to remove policies so that there would no longer be a phenomenon of mountainous communes "not registering to strive to meet new rural standards", because highland communes in extremely difficult areas when meeting new rural standards (no longer belonging to the category of extremely difficult communes) will no longer enjoy social security regimes (health insurance, rice support for students, regimes for cadres, civil servants, public employees)...
At this discussion session, National Assembly delegates from Nghe An, Major General Tran Duc Thuan and Hoang Thi Thu Hien, also proposed a number of solutions to effectively implement the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction; it is necessary to establish a truly objective and scientific evaluation and monitoring system for the Program, in order to have a correct, realistic and transparent database.
Implementing the Law on Supervisory Activities of the National Assembly and People's Councils; Resolution No. 594 of the National Assembly Standing Committee on guidelines for supervisory activities; and closely following the reality of social life, from the beginning of the 2021-2026 term up to now, the National Assembly Delegation and People's Councils at all levels of Nghe An province have focused on innovating supervisory activities in many stages. First of all, the selection of supervisory contents is urgent issues in the locality or issues that have a great impact on people's lives, economic and social development, which are of interest to People's Council delegates, voters and people.
To ensure quality supervision activities, based on the selection of supervision content, the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council considers to select the appropriate subjects, scope, and areas of supervision; develops a plan to supervise the practical situation requiring supervision topics based on grasping and listening to more information from voters and the People. In some supervisions to ensure quality planning, the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council directly or directs the committees, groups and delegates of the Provincial People's Council to organize a "pre-survey" in advance to grasp complete, comprehensive and accurate information so that when conducting supervision, it will bring higher efficiency.
In this term, the Provincial People's Council has also focused on building a "compact" but "refined" supervisory delegation; in addition to the Standing Committee and the Provincial People's Council committees, the Provincial People's Council Standing Committee invites more people with in-depth expertise, understanding the field of the People's Council's supervision or related to the specialized work being supervised; also invites the Provincial People's Council delegations in the locality and the local People's Council Standing Committee at the delegation's supervisory destination.
From the conclusions and resolutions on the results of the supervision of the Provincial People's Council, the Provincial People's Committee accepted, issued plans and directed resolutely to overcome the limitations and shortcomings pointed out. In particular, based on the recommendations of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council, the Standing Committee of the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee issued a number of directives and resolutions to strengthen the Party's leadership over a number of issues supervised by the Provincial People's Council such as: Resolution No. 13 dated June 1, 2023 on strengthening the Party's leadership over the management of investment projects using land; Directive No. 20 dated December 28, 2022 on strengthening the Party's leadership over State management of minerals in Nghe An province.
That creates more "weight" in implementing the supervision contents of the Provincial People's Council, because the resolutions and directives issued by the Provincial Party Standing Committee are the responsibility of the entire political system and all levels, sectors and localities within the province must participate, not just the sectors and localities that the People's Council conducts supervision; thereby creating clear changes in practice.
For example, more than 1 year after the Provincial People's Council's supervision of suspended projects, the Provincial People's Committee inspected, revoked, and terminated the operations of 36 projects in 10 localities and the Southeast Economic Zone...
Or through monitoring the training and human resource development, Mr. Hoang Sy Tuyen - Head of Vocational Training Department, Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs of Nghe An said: The industry "received" a lot of help, because in addition to pointing out the shortcomings and weaknesses, the Provincial People's Council proposed solutions that need to be focused on. On that basis, the Provincial People's Committee has stepped in to direct provincial departments, branches and agencies and units to implement, such as rearranging vocational training facilities, reducing 9 facilities compared to 2020. The Provincial People's Committee has also paid attention to allocating resources to invest in facilities, training equipment and support program and content innovation for facilities with a total of more than 233 billion VND. At the same time, the Provincial People's Committee also directed relevant departments and branches to more fully and promptly implement policies to support vocational training for workers in the province.
From the monitoring that correctly points out the existing problems and limitations, and makes recommendations and solutions, which are accepted and overcome by the sectors and localities, the role and "voice" of agencies and elected representatives are raised, not to be turned into "mail birds", that is, just stopping at conveying problems and shortcomings; but the important thing is to follow up and resolve them to the end.
Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Nguyen Nam Dinh affirmed: The most important thing is that after supervision, we must pay attention to "following up" on the discovered issues and make recommendations for the competent authorities to resolve them; we must both "supervise" and "monitor", avoiding "supervision" without "monitoring" or "monitoring" without "monitoring", which will not be effective.
In fact, in the past time, the Standing Committee of the People's Council of Nghe An province has assigned the committees of the People's Council of the province to monitor, urge, and "follow up" on the implementation of recommendations and proposals after supervision for the subjects under supervision; every 6 months and 1 year, the Standing Committee of the People's Council of the province requires departments and branches to report on the implementation results; for issues that are delayed or do not create changes due to subjective reasons, the Standing Committee of the People's Council of the province will continue to include them in the explanation session or include them in the agenda of the regular meeting of the People's Council for discussion and questioning to clarify responsibilities. These activities are made public on the mass media; this is considered a "channel" for voters and the People to monitor departments and branches in implementing the recommendations of the People's Council of the province.
