Part 1: Responsibility belongs to local authorities

(Baonghean) -In recent times, the authorities at all levels in our province have basically resolved and promptly handled citizens' complaints and denunciations, contributing to maintaining political security and social order and safety. However, the work of resolving complaints and denunciations is still inadequate; the nature of complaints and denunciations is potentially complicated, and in some cases, there are still cases of prolongation, bypassing levels, and circular transfers of complaints and denunciations, wasting time and effort of state agencies as well as complainants and denouncers.

The “Nha Din Market” incident (Vinh City) that Nghe An Newspaper recently reported is one of many incidents caused by the local authorities’ lack of close supervision and responsibility in carrying out their duties, leading to people’s anger and in large numbers going to complain and send petitions to higher levels. Although in the past, the establishment of Nha Din Market was to create jobs for some households after their production land was recovered; some traders contributed money to build Nha Din Market, but when making a report to the city, Hung Dung Ward affirmed: “In 2004, the ward invested in building kiosks and business premises in the market. The assets on the land are the assets of Hung Dung Ward, built by the Ward People’s Committee”... When people questioned, the ward leaders answered in a roundabout way. Dissatisfied with this attitude, the traders wrote a petition and many times gathered in large numbers to the Vinh City Party Committee, Vinh City People's Committee and the Provincial People's Committee to make a petition... At the end of June 2013, Vinh City People's Committee directed Hung Dung Ward to organize a meeting with the people and redo the report...

Mr. Truong Xuan Ty - Chief Inspector of Vinh City said: The number of complaints, denunciations and petitions from citizens in Vinh City often increases year after year. The petitions are mainly related to land, compensation and site clearance... There are many reasons why people send petitions to higher levels, including the lack of capacity and qualifications of grassroots officials to help people understand the areas in which people complain and petition, leading to the situation not being resolved completely at the grassroots level.

According to preliminary statistics, in the first 6 months of 2013, state administrative agencies at all levels in the province received 2,771 citizens coming to complain, denounce and make recommendations, reflecting, an increase of 4% compared to the same period in 2012. In Vinh City, one of the localities with many petitions, in the first 6 months of the year, over 1,054 petitions were received, many petitions from citizens sent to the wrong authority (beyond the level) were transferred by departments and branches to the city for handling.

In many localities, whenever people submit petitions to report negative phenomena occurring at the grassroots level, local leaders often try to push the issue aside, avoid resolving it, or resolve it perfunctorily.

Comrade Vo Viet Thanh - Member of the Standing Committee, Chairman of the Provincial Party Committee's Inspection Commission said: There are cases that are not resolved thoroughly by the grassroots level, the resolution method is not smooth, when there is a conclusion, the handling is slow, leading to people's frustration and continuing to complain and denounce, only when the provincial working groups get involved can they be resolved completely.

In reality, there are wrongdoings, local authorities are respectful and cover up for each other, people discover, reflect, send petitions to the authorities, but still not resolved, they are forced to ask the press to intervene. When the truth is exposed, under pressure from public opinion, authorities and sectors will intervene to handle such violations in implementing policy payments to subjects in Thanh Chi commune, Cat Van commune (Thanh Chuong), in Nghi Loc district...

Mr. Nguyen Chi Nham - Chief Inspector of the province said: When a locality has a problem leading to a complaint or petition, if the head of the local government and the entire political system in that locality gets involved, focuses on resolving it correctly and thoroughly, it will limit the situation of complaints and petitions that go beyond the level and drag on. Otherwise, situations like the complaints about policy settlement in Dien Chau district, or the violations of Thanh An commune officials (Thanh Chuong) in land management will occur...

Regarding the role and responsibility of grassroots officials in allowing complaints and lawsuits to occur, Mr. Le Quoc Hong - Vice Chairman of Vinh City People's Committee commented: "The workload is increasing, requiring civil servants to increasingly improve their qualifications and responsibilities. But in reality, there are some officials who are still "this and that" in the process of handling work; deliberately dragging on, prolonging the time to handle work so that people have to "go back and forth, meet" many times to "finish" the work, leading to people's frustration".

According to Conclusion No. 310 KL/TTR dated May 14, 2013 of the Provincial Inspectorate on the performance of public duties in Vinh City, in 2011, there were 119 documents that the departments processed late compared to the time frame assigned by the Chairman of Vinh City People's Committee (mainly settlement of capital for basic construction investment; granting of housing construction permits; granting of business licenses; appraisal records of technical economic reports; granting of land use right certificates; transfer of entire plots; re-recognition, division of plots, change of purpose).

In 668 documents assigned to consider and resolve complaints, denunciations, recommendations and reflections of citizens, through inspection, there were 83 cases of recommendations and reflections that were resolved later than the assigned documents, and 29 cases that were not resolved. In 2010 and 2011, the Vinh City People's Committee performed the tasks assigned by the Provincial People's Committee and other sectors late in 83/1,193 documents, accounting for 7%, some departments did not perform the assigned tasks... 12 departments were late in performing, of which 5 departments had lost documents; when checking some records to monitor the registration of construction permits for private houses, business licenses for individual households... there was also a situation of not following the procedures approved by the Vinh City People's Committee...

In conclusion 702A of the Provincial Inspectorate on the performance of public duties by officials and civil servants in Thanh Chuong district, it is stated that: - The performance of public duties (advising on the handling of records and cases) by a number of officials and civil servants, and departments and offices is still behind schedule (accounting for 5.84%). The work of inspecting and urging the performance of public duties by officials and civil servants has not been focused on. In 2010 and 2011, the People's Committee of Thanh Chuong district did not receive and process records of individuals and enterprises through the "one-stop" department, which did not create favorable conditions for citizens and organizations to exercise their rights in accordance with the law; Complaints and denunciations sent to the People's Committee of the district have not been centralized at the Inspectorate to be recorded in the monitoring book, classified and processed according to regulations. Some cases have not fully implemented the complaint and denunciation settlement process according to regulations. The inspection teams did not organize progress reports to seek direction from the district People's Committee leaders, and there was no notice of the end of the inspection...

According to Mr. Nguyen Chi Nham, the cause of people's complaints and lawsuits is partly due to the quality of public service of civil servants, and the results of the provincial inspection of public service ethics in a number of departments, branches and localities recently have shown that.

According to Mr. Le Van Dung - Head of the Department of Citizen Reception and Post-Inspection Handling (Provincial Inspectorate), one of the reasons for the prolonged and multi-level complaints and petitions is that: “Governments at all levels have not really paid attention to disseminating the law to the people. In some places, the propaganda work is still too formal, leading to people not understanding the policies of the Party and the State. When people come to the local authorities to submit petitions, the recipients do not explain clearly, sometimes they just do it for the sake of it… making people even more upset.”

During the times of receiving petitions and complaints from citizens to the Nghe An Newspaper Editorial Office, many people confided to reporters: We have to write petitions to higher levels or go to press agencies because the violations were caused by the local authorities. Now, if we write petitions to the local authorities, we are afraid that the whole village will be in trouble!

In fact, we must admit that there are times and places where the handling of complaints and denunciations has not received due attention. Many cases of people's complaints have been prolonged, but have not been resolved. Because of lack of trust in the local government apparatus, people have traveled far and wide to send petitions to the province or central government. After that, most of the petitions are sent back to the locality for resolution. The vicious cycle of petitions being passed around, from lower levels to higher levels and vice versa, is a waste of time and money, and the handling efficiency is limited!

In the first 6 months of the year, the Inspection Committees at all levels inspected 395 party members with signs of violations. The inspection results concluded that 225 party members had violated the law, of which 100 cases had to be disciplined. The main contents of the violations were: lack of responsibility in performing duties and tasks; moral qualities, lifestyle, land management and use... The Inspection Committees at all levels also resolved 31 complaints of violations by party members. The main contents of the violations of party members through the resolution of complaints were lack of responsibility; land management and use, the principle of democratic centralism; corruption, waste; intentional violations...

In the first 6 months of the year, through inspection, budget appraisal, final settlement examination, budget revenue and expenditure control and investigation, local authorities discovered a total value of violations of 132,538 billion VND and 186,103 hectares of land...

Duc Chuyen