Paradox

(Baonghean) - In 2015, the whole country reduced more than 9,000 staff. For Hanoi city alone, do you know how much the staff reduction was?

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- As a big city in the country, they must have drastically reduced staff.

- No big deal, from August 2015 until now Hanoi city has only reduced 20 staff.

- Are you wrong? As the nerve center of the whole country, the administrative apparatus must be compact and effective. How could it be that in nearly 6 months it could only reduce 20 positions?

- That is 100% true and has been announced in the press by the authorities. The reason was explained very clearly by Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee Ngo Thi Thanh Hang.

- What is the specific cause?

- According to the explanation of the Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee, the reason why Hanoi cannot streamline the payroll is because the staff has been standardized. Staff and civil servants from the city level to the ward level all have university degrees or higher, many of whom have master's, doctoral, and bachelor's degrees in politics. Many master's and doctoral degrees happily work as ward staff. With such a team of staff and civil servants with "standard" degrees, how can the payroll be streamlined?

- It is difficult to reduce the number of officials and civil servants with full qualifications. However, we must consider their actual capacity and work efficiency. Those with qualifications but unable to do the job must still be removed from the payroll.

- What you said is just theory, but in reality, with the current mechanism of managing cadres and civil servants, it is very difficult to evaluate the work efficiency of each person. That is why the Deputy Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee had to honestly tell the press: "I don't know how they work, how effective they are, but with a master's degree, doctorate, and political theory, who dares to streamline?"

- Do you see, through the story of Hanoi city, a paradox is revealed that the more we standardize cadres, the more difficult it is to streamline the payroll. If we continue to standardize cadres according to the standard of degrees, there will be the problem of running for degrees, buying degrees to get into the payroll. The consequence is that degrees become "famous without reality", just a cover to prevent cadres and civil servants from being streamlined.

- You are right. This is a paradox in training and using cadres today, and a solution is needed.

TRAN HONG CO