Reduce meetings; innovate investment policies for agriculture

On the afternoon of December 10, under the chairmanship of Mr. Nguyen Van De - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Secretary of Yen Thanh District Party Committee, the Provincial People's Council delegates from Yen Thanh, Nghia Dan, and Tan Ky constituencies conducted group discussions. Photo: Pham Bang

Need to reduce meetings

Opening the group discussion, delegate Hoang Quoc Hao - Director of the Department of Justice said that regarding the direction and administration of the Provincial People's Committee, the number of meetings is currently very large, and every meeting requires the Director to attend, limiting the assignment of Deputy Directors to attend instead.

“There are days when the Department of Justice receives 7 meeting invitations, and each meeting requires the Department's leaders to attend. However, the Department of Justice currently has 1 director and 3 deputy directors, so it is impossible to arrange them. Therefore, I suggest that the number of meetings should be reduced, and the quality of the meetings should be improved,” said delegate Hao.

Sharing the same view, delegate Le Ba Hung - Director of the Department of Information and Communications suggested that some meetings that can be converted into working sessions should be converted and the invitation should clearly state the working hours from and to. "If well organized, several meetings can be held in one session. For example, the Department of Information and Communications, working sessions are only a maximum of 1.5 hours, so a lot of time is saved," delegate Hung said.

Delegate Le Ba Hung - Director of the Department of Information and Communications suggested reducing meetings. Photo: Pham Bang

Discussing this issue in detail, delegate Thai Thi An Chung - Deputy of the Provincial People's Council's Legal Committee said that the province has had a plan to reduce meetings for a long time, but in reality it is very difficult. Online meetings in 2018 were only implemented in 22 sessions, mainly at the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial People's Committee. The Provincial People's Committee should study and implement Decision 45/2018 of the Prime Minister on regulations on meeting regimes in the management and operation of agencies in the state administrative system and move towards reducing meetings.

According to this delegate, currently, many Steering Committees, when going for inspections, the comrades in the Steering Committee only coordinate in activities, but the inspections are of a professional nature, so the quality of inspections by the Steering Committees cannot be high, and the activities are formal and take a lot of time, including meetings.

Delegate Chung suggested that the Provincial People's Committee review the activities of inter-sectoral organizations, in order to reduce and eliminate ineffective organizations and reduce pressure on comrades in the Inter-sectoral Steering Committee.

Agricultural investment is still low

Regarding investment in agriculture, delegate Hoang Quoc Hao said that the refrain of good harvests, falling prices or crop failures in agricultural production still occurs. This situation causes many difficulties for farmers. However, all levels and sectors have not yet come up with a solution to solve this situation.

As for delegate Phan Van Tuyen - Chairman of Yen Thanh District People's Committee, in agricultural production, it is necessary to accumulate land to invest in production of concentrated raw material areas. However, the current mechanism to encourage land accumulation is still unclear. The transfer of rights according to the law is regulated, but how to encourage land accumulation is unclear.

“Regarding the policy mechanism to attract businesses to invest in agricultural production, the central and provincial ones are not large enough, so businesses are not bold enough to invest. I propose that the Provincial People's Council assign departments and branches to study appropriate policies to encourage businesses to invest capital in order to maximize investment in agriculture and improve farmers' living standards,” said delegate Tuyen.

Concerned about this issue, delegate Pham Van Hoa - Chief of the Provincial People's Council Office said that attracting investment in the agricultural sector is very difficult. The agricultural sector needs to research solutions to find markets abroad and connect with foreign investors to export agricultural products.

“If we do not connect to find stable output, it will be difficult to improve agricultural production. Besides, we need to innovate the way of making policies, we need to invite them in. There are some cadres at the grassroots level who, when speaking to the people, seem to be doing them a favor and have negative problems. The mechanism that created us corrupts the cadres, so we need to innovate policies,” delegate Hoa affirmed.

Many pressing issues

During the discussion, delegates also discussed many issues of concern to voters. Delegate Nguyen Thi Quynh Hoa said that the current review and classification of poor and near-poor households based on multidimensional criteria still has many shortcomings, not reflecting the real life of the people. The criteria are focusing on quantity, not on quality and price.

Currently, the situation of human trafficking, especially child trafficking in mountainous districts, is complicated. Recently, a new method has appeared: many brokers bring pregnant women to China to sell their fetuses.

Mr. Nguyen Tien Lam - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development discussed investment policies in agriculture. Photo: Pham Bang

“The Nghe An Newspaper report stated that in Huu Kiem commune alone, there have been more than 20 cases of fetuses being taken to China to be sold. The purpose of the children left behind is unknown. People know that this is a crime and are aware of the tricks of human trafficking. Therefore, this is a matter of concern in the management of authorities at all levels and functional agencies,” said delegate Hoa.

Regarding the work of responding to voters' opinions and recommendations, the Provincial People's Committee reported that 100% of the opinions and recommendations have been responded to, but the quality and effectiveness of the responses need to be discussed. Some reports are still general and formal. People are concerned because the quality of handling many opinions is not guaranteed, some opinions have been reflected many times but have not been resolved completely, and the responses are long-winded, general, and not specific.

Concluding the discussion, Mr. Nguyen Van De - Secretary of Yen Thanh District Party Committee said that the discussion recorded 45 opinions of the delegates. These opinions will be compiled to be sent to the Provincial People's Council in the discussion session in the hall tomorrow morning (December 11)./.