"Not just me, all the ministers are under pressure!"

Breakthrough, strong action

Looking back over the past year and more than half of the Government's term, can the Minister summarize the highlights in the Government's management and direction activities?

Minister, Chairman Mai Tien Dung:The Prime Minister's consistent spirit is the determination to build a creative, active, honest government that speaks and acts, aiming to serve the people and businesses. Especially to improve discipline.

The top priority of the Government and the Prime Minister is to perfect institutions and policies. Next is to promote internal strength, turn difficulties and challenges into opportunities, and create mechanisms to attract resources. In solving pressing social and people's problems, we must consider them with compassion and reason.

Therefore, in 2018, GDP growth reached an impressive figure of 7.08%. Inflation was controlled, the consumer price index remained at 3.54%. Trade surplus was over 7 billion USD. Public debt and government debt were both very well controlled…

The cultural and social fields continue to achieve important results. Anti-corruption work is truly effective.

Right in the group discussion at the Central Conference, I said that we do a good job of anti-corruption, strictly handle cadres, including retired cadres, and do not hold back or slow down the growth rate.

On the contrary, doing a good job of PCTN creates transparency and fairness, which is a decisive factor that makes positivity, dynamism, creativity and enthusiasm more likely to arise to contribute better to the country's development.

In 2019, the Government chose the 12-word motto “discipline, integrity, action, creativity, efficiency, breakthrough”. So, what will the Government “breakthrough”?

Minister, Chairman Mai Tien Dung:In addition to the consistent issue of "discipline, integrity, action, creativity, and efficiency", in 2019, entering the final period of its term, the Government requires a "breakthrough" to take stronger actions and bring about better results.

The connotation of "breakthrough" is very broad, demonstrating the determination of the entire team of cadres and civil servants, not just government agencies.

In institutional development, the Government’s responsibility is to strongly decentralize, clearly define and clarify responsibilities. For example, we have 5 million individual business households. If there is no breakthrough mechanism, they will not “grow up” to become enterprises.

Or implementing the resolution on streamlining the payroll without a strong breakthrough cannot be done, and doing it without high efficiency is not okay.

Then in 2019, we must make a breakthrough to do well in electronic payments, implement online public services with links and sharing to make them public, transparent, and reduce "petty" corruption...

The General Secretary and President said, “2019 must be better than 2018 in all areas.” Meanwhile, the larger the scale, the more difficult it is to increase the ratio. However, we still have room, if we can take advantage of it and promote it, we will achieve the set goals.

It's really stressful!

The Government Office is an advisory body, assisting the Government and the Prime Minister in directing and operating. The Minister is also the one who "works side by side" with the Prime Minister in many activities. Do you ever feel overloaded and pressured?

Minister, Chairman Mai Tien Dung:Saying there is no pressure or hardship is a lie. It is really stressful! Because it requires higher, more, more complete, and better professional capacity, courage, and intelligence to meet the requirements. Therefore, you have to persevere, try your best, get involved, be dedicated, and loyal.

This is not just me, but all the Ministers have such pressure! With the Prime Minister's dedicated, decisive, and enthusiastic leadership, no Minister or Commander of any industry can stand outside. If you create a separate, backward path, you will immediately deviate from the direction.

The Government Office must also reform, thoroughly grasp the idea of ​​being open, willing to learn, willing to listen, always aiming for modernity, professionalism, determined to properly implement the Prime Minister's thoughts and strong instructions. That is, to shift from administrative management to service, proactively doing all work, if it is just a "clerk" then it is not the Government Office.

To issue a document, one must propose, advise, determine the correct authority, comply with the provisions of the law and clarify the content of the request for opinions. When I was working in the locality, I saw that when asking for opinions, the Central Government did not respond, responded slowly or pushed the issue, which created difficulties for the locality.

Therefore, issuing a document without clear opinions, without expertise, without specific advice, but only including the round sentence "comply with the provisions of the law" is a waste, I will immediately review the staff.

The Government Office must also set an example and be a pioneer in building an e-Government. Up to now, the Government Office has become paperless, all work is processed electronically, which is a very good thing.

At the beginning of his term, the Prime Minister established the Prime Minister's Working Group. Then he established the Working Group to inspect public services. Recently, he continued to establish a special Working Group. This shows the strong and decisive move of the Government and the Prime Minister, but there are also concerns about whether there are too many Working Groups?

Minister, Chairman Mai Tien Dung:The Prime Minister's working group was established to urge and inspect the tasks assigned by the Government and the Prime Minister to ministries, branches and localities.

The report of the 6th Central Conference assessed that the establishment of the Prime Minister's Working Group was a "bright spot". The Government's report also showed that this was a positive move in paying attention to the issue of task implementation - a long-standing weakness of ours. In recent times, the Prime Minister's Working Group has created a very important spread.

Recently, the recruitment and appointment work in many localities, ministries and branches has caused public outrage, and "hot above, cold below", so the Prime Minister established a Working Group to inspect the performance of public duties. From there, it will help the Prime Minister inspect and urge agencies to perform their public duties, recruit and appoint officials.

Most recently, there was the Thu Thiem case in Ho Chi Minh City and many people from the localities came to Hanoi to protest. Seeing the scene of the people was very pitiful, even the elderly and weak people still had to come here in the rain, wind, and cold...

If this situation continues, it will not be good, affecting politics, social order and security, and trust, so the Prime Minister decided to establish a special working group headed by Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh to resolve pressing issues.

I think it is necessary to establish working groups. These three working groups do not overlap and operate effectively.

As for the Prime Minister's Working Group, which I am the Head of, has inspected 61 units in 3 years. Thanks to that, in 2018, there were 18,820 assigned tasks, but now there are only 218 unfinished or overdue tasks. Compared to the beginning of the term, when 25.2% were overdue, now there are only 1.15%.

Not afraid to face "vested interests"

We have promoted administrative reform, but there are still many barriers to reform. Does this discourage the Minister?

Minister, Chairman Mai Tien Dung: I am not discouraged because society and businesses really need it! In 2018, we worked very hard, so we cut down more than 6,770 specialized inspection items, more than 3,340 business conditions, saving more than 6,270 billion VND with 17.5 million working days.

In fact, there are cases where people die in traffic accidents but cannot be declared dead. Producing a chocolate bar with 13 licenses is “a pain in the teeth”… The barriers and harassment make people and businesses very upset.

Even when we reform and implement online public services at levels 3 and 4, many places receive documents and then run or ride to the office to process, stamp, and then set a date to bring the results to the public administrative center to return, which is not in the spirit of openness and transparency.

Therefore, we must reform strongly, resolutely, and firmly - that is, we must go into specifics, substance, not formalities, to see the satisfaction of the people and businesses.

The Minister once said that reform cannot be done “without passion and concern”. Officials carrying out reforms must dare to face and confront “group interests”. Has the Minister faced this problem yet?

Minister, ChairmanMai Tien Dung:Yes! Cutting down on business conditions and specialized inspection procedures means facing “group interests”. But I am not afraid, because we do things openly and transparently.

Most importantly, if businesses and people support us, we must do it, there is no other way. The Party, State and Prime Minister leaders are so strong, if we do not do it, we will be guilty. If we see things that are "unpleasant to the ears and eyes" and ignore them, how can we be called the Prime Minister's Working Group?

I believe that no matter how you reform, the most important thing is still people. If you don't change the way you do things and are still conservative, you have to change so that other people can do things more responsibly.

Even at the Government Office, when the meetings are very fair, when is this task assigned, why is it delayed... If the task is not resolved late, then either they are too good at "playing around", or they are too stupid. Accepting any type of task will fail, so the cadres have to do it.

I myself have also given several cases of not managing work or changing job positions. The attitude must be resolute like that!

Thank you very much, Minister!