It's hard to be a village chief because people always complain and it's easy to get into trouble.

(Baonghean.vn) - From family discord to fence disputes, to funerals and weddings... from the beginning of the village to the end of the hamlet, the hamlet chief must always be present.

Reporter of Nghe An Newspaper and the village chief of Bo village (Yen Hop commune, Quy Hop), Mr. Dinh Van Duong (second from right) learn about the allocation of forestry land to people in the village. Photo: Document

On Sunday, a few friends in the group invited each other to drink coffee at a newly opened coffee shop. I have to admit that the coffee here is delicious and cheap, the seats are spacious, cool and very comfortable. A friend in Bong Khe commune (Con Cuong) said:

Yesterday, my hamlet held a hamlet voter congress for the 2017-2020 term. During the congress, the hamlet voters approved the evaluation of the hamlet executive committee's activities for the 2015-2017 term and acknowledged the hamlet executive committee's efforts.

When it came to the election of the hamlet executive committee for the 2017-2020 term, no one ran for office. When the congress approved the nominations, whoever was nominated, they tried every way to withdraw from the nomination list.

Seeing the difficult situation, there was a suggestion that the Congress assign the Party cell and Party branch to discuss and assign Party members in the Party cell to take on the responsibilities of hamlet chief and deputy hamlet chief to help the people.

The Party cell held meetings and discussed for a long time but no one stood up to take responsibility. To demonstrate the exemplary role of Party members, there was a suggestion to draw lots, and whoever won the lot would have to take on the role of village chief and deputy village chief.

The lottery was conducted and two female comrades were chosen as hamlet chief and deputy hamlet chief for the 2017 - 2020 term.

In mountainous areas, traveling within villages is still difficult. In the photo is a section of road through Lang Yen village, Mon Son commune (Con Cuong), 7km from the commune center. Photo courtesy

Listening to him tell the story of drawing lots to be the village chief in his village, my heart ached! Some of my friends who had worked as party secretary and village chief confided: Being a soldier at the end of the line is very difficult and complicated, because every day and every hour we have to deal with the people. And the people are all different, if we touch their interests, we have to be careful, being scolded is a small matter, if we are not careful, the whole family and clan will be in trouble.

A village chief was threatened by a person who borrowed alcohol and brought a knife to his house because his family was not considered a poor household, blaming the village chief for not defending them.

The work was quite hard, with all the unnamed matters from within the family, disputes over fences, and then funerals, weddings... from the beginning of the village to the end of the hamlet, everything had to be called upon the hamlet chief.

If I don't go, I can't, but if I do, I have to ask my wife for money. How can a few allowances that are not even enough for 5 construction worker jobs be enough?!

So why is it so difficult to work in villages and hamlets these days? While the press and public opinion are struggling with the evils of buying and selling positions and power from the commune and ward levels upwards, to get into the civil service payroll one has to spend hundreds of millions of dong, the position of hamlet chief has to be "drawn by lot" and in reality no one has served for two terms... is that something we have to think about?

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