Voters' recommendations sent to the mid-year meeting of Nghe An Provincial People's Council

Bac Ly commune is one of 9 communes in Nghe An province that does not implement the arrangement of commune-level administrative units, because the locality meets the criteria for natural area with more than 109 km2.², reaching a rate of more than 218% according to the standard and population size of the commune of more than 5,500 people, of which more than 98% are ethnic minorities, reaching over 555% of the standard on the number of ethnic minorities in the area according to regulations.

Although there is no arrangement or requirement to operate according to the 2-level government model with strong decentralization, increased functions, tasks, and increased authority for localities; meanwhile, the current staff and civil servants have not been arranged enough according to the assigned staffing quota. Specifically, the total number of staff and civil servants in Bac Ly commune currently has 27/50-55 quotas. The lack of staff and civil servants leads to many positions in the Party Building Committee, Inspection Committee, committees of the People's Council and civil servants of the People's Committee being lacking, having to hold concurrent positions, affecting the effectiveness of direction, management, operation and quality of service to the people. Therefore, we recommend that the province soon have solutions to allocate and arrange additional staff and civil servants for localities to ensure the stable, smooth and effective operation of the commune-level apparatus.

Along with the addition of staff, it is recommended that the province pay attention to supporting funding to build concrete roads connecting the commune center to the remaining 11/13 villages. Currently, these villages do not have concrete roads, and travel is mainly by dirt roads, which are narrow and seriously degraded, especially in the rainy season. This not only causes difficulties in daily life, study, and medical treatment, but also greatly hinders economic development, agricultural product transportation, and trade of goods for people in remote areas. At the same time, the province needs to have more policies to support livelihood development programs, support suitable seedlings, create jobs, and increase income for people, especially poor and near-poor households.

Hung Chan commune was established on the basis of merging the entire natural area and population of 3 communes: Chau Phong, Chau Hoan, Dien Lam (old Quy Chau district). After the merger, the locality identified forest economic development as the main direction: Planting large timber forests associated with sustainable forest certification, exploiting medicinal herbs under the forest canopy, developing local specialty trees and animals...

However, Hung Chan commune is located in a remote area, with more than 95% of the population being ethnic minorities; socio-economic conditions are still difficult, especially the seriously degraded traffic infrastructure. Provincial Road 544 - the 30km "main artery" connecting the commune with National Highway 48 - has been severely damaged, with numerous "buffalo potholes" and "elephant potholes". Many roads connecting areas in the commune are also degraded and muddy; some routes have to go through overflow bridges, which are often cut off in the rainy season.

Difficult traffic is hindering trade, causing many obstacles in production, study, medical examination and treatment of people, including the staff and civil servants of the commune. Therefore, the locality recommends that the province soon allocate capital to upgrade Provincial Road 544, rebuild important spillways, ensuring smooth connection from the commune center to the villages, from the commune to key economic and social areas in the province.

Along with transportation, the current post-merger headquarters of the commune is located in two locations more than 10 km apart: the office of the People's Committee is located in the old Chau Phong commune, and the Party Committee and People's Council are located in the old Dien Lam commune. The separation of the headquarters affects the leadership and management work; it is difficult to coordinate work, Party activities, and handle administrative procedures. The Hung Chan commune government proposed that the province soon have a policy to plan and allocate capital to build a new, synchronous headquarters, creating conditions for the post-merger apparatus to operate more stably and effectively.

Marine economy is one of the four important economic corridors of Nghe An province, which has been identified and clearly oriented by the Politburo in Resolution No. 39, dated July 18, 2023, with a focus on urban development, industry, high technology, general services and marine economic sectors. At the same time, in the marine economic development strategy, the province also determined to focus on exploiting the potential of tourism, industry, services and aquaculture, seafood exploitation associated with environmental protection and sustainable development.

Quynh Mai Ward, the new administrative unit after the arrangement, has a coastline of about 6.5 km, including the coastline of Quynh Phuong Ward and the old Quynh Lien Commune. This is an important area in the Quynh coastal tourism cluster, with a total length from Quynh Lap Commune to the old Tien Thuy Commune of about 26.5 km. According to the Project to adjust the general planning of Hoang Mai town until 2045, Quynh Mai is identified as one of the important parts of the marine economic corridor.

However, to realize the planning orientation, the locality recommends that the province has policies to support the modernization of the fleet, encourage fishermen to stay at sea, go offshore to fish, increase the value of exploited output and maintain sovereignty over the sea and islands. In addition, it is recommended that the province attract investment in developing seaport and logistics services, in which priority should be given to upgrading the Quynh Phuong fishing port (old) to meet regional standards, building a seafood logistics center and a modern cold storage system in this area, linked to the processing chain in the Mai Hung industrial cluster (old) and Quynh Xuan (old).

In Quynh Mai ward, there are currently many historical relics ranked at national and provincial levels, such as Xuan Uc temple, Phung Hung temple, Xuan Hoa temple, Kim Lung temple, Ngoc Huy temple, Can Mon pagoda..., especially Con temple - the temple is one of the "four sacred animals" of Nghe An "first Con, second Qua, third Bach Ma, fourth Chieu Trung". Along with the beautiful coastline, many residential areas live on traditional fishing and seafood processing... These are potentials and strengths for tourism development. The locality hopes that the province will support and call for investment in resort tourism areas, connecting the development of sea tourism with spiritual and cultural tourism, traditional fishing villages and experiences of catching and processing local fish sauce. This is an important solution for sustainable development of the marine economy, creating stable livelihoods, improving income and life for people living along the Quynh Mai coast.

Hanh Lam commune is currently merged from two communes Hanh Lam and Thanh Duc (old Thanh Chuong district). Although before the merger, in 2023, Thanh Duc commune was recognized as meeting new rural standards and Hanh Lam commune was meeting advanced new rural standards.

However, after the merger, with a natural area of ​​up to 278 km², we determined that it was necessary to review all new rural criteria in the new commune, compare them with the current criteria to determine the level of achievement, and then build a specific roadmap and implementation plan. Our goal is to soon bring Hanh Lam commune after the merger to meet advanced new rural standards.

However, in reality, there are many difficulties. Firstly, the area is large, the population is scattered, many hamlets are dozens of kilometers away from the commune center, making travel very difficult, especially during the rainy season. Secondly, the power grid infrastructure, schools, medical stations, cultural facilities, etc. are not synchronized with the new development requirements, while the investment demand is very large and local resources are limited. Thirdly, mobilizing socialization is difficult because there are few businesses in the locality, the economic conditions of the majority of people are still difficult, and they do not have the conditions to contribute much to the construction of new rural areas.

Therefore, we recommend that the Provincial People's Council and Provincial People's Committee pay attention to supporting early funding so that the commune can deploy the construction of essential infrastructure. First of all, invest in building the commune's office after the merger, meeting the working requirements of cadres, civil servants and serving the people. Thereby, creating necessary conditions for the locality to stabilize the organization, improve operational efficiency, and promote the new rural construction program to achieve sustainable results. The province also needs to prioritize allocating resources to invest in traffic infrastructure, schools, and medical stations so that people can truly benefit from the apparatus arrangement.

In addition, Hanh Lam is a border commune with a total border length adjacent to Laos of nearly 24 km and has 6 landmarks. In recent times, the work of organizing border patrols, border markers, border security protection and forest fire protection and prevention has been prioritized by functional forces and localities. Currently, the budget allocation only ensures about 60-65%, we recommend that the province increase the budget allocation for this task for border communes such as Hanh Lam, contributing to maintaining and protecting border security.

I clearly felt the innovation in the organization and operation of the new government apparatus after Cua Lo ward was established and operated under the two-level government model. Going directly to the ward's Public Administration Service Center to register for compulsory health insurance for individual business households, I saw the team of cadres and civil servants working very responsibly, professionally, and enthusiastically guiding the people. That is a very positive and noteworthy change.

We expect the working spirit of the ward officials to be urgent, effective and people-centered, as stated by the Party Secretary and Chairman of the People's Council of Cua Lo Ward - Mr. Ngo Duc Kien at the first session of the People's Council of the ward, term I, 2021-2026: "Ward officials strive so that each individual, organization and enterprise does not waste development opportunities".

In order for Cua Lo to develop strongly and sustainably, in addition to reforming the apparatus, practical policies and guidelines are needed. Voters and people want the province to pay attention to attracting investment in developing tourism infrastructure and services in a synchronous and modern direction. In addition, there should be specific policies to encourage people to participate in production, business, expand livelihoods based on the potential and strengths of the marine economy and accompany tourism development, contributing to increasing job opportunities, income and improving the quality of life of the people.