Strive to complete payment of housing support money for workers before August 30

Comrade Dao Ngoc Dung - Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Party Committee of Central Agencies, Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs chaired.

At Nghe An, comrade Doan Hong Vu - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Director of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs chaired. Representatives of departments, branches and localities also participated.

Disbursement rate is still lower than expected

Delegates participating at Nghe An bridge point. Photo: Thanh Nga

The conference focused on reviewing the progress of housing support payments for workers in the provinces, especially those with many enterprises, which are facing many difficulties in reviewing, appraising and paying.

Nghe An has more than 4,000 workers accessing housing rental support policies. Photo courtesy of Nguyen Hai.

According to the report, provinces and cities have promptly issued implementation plans; organized conferences to guide and urge businesses to prepare documents to support workers, in which specific tasks are assigned to each relevant department, branch, People's Committee (PC) of districts, towns, and cities. Many localities have issued documents authorizing the People's Committee at the district level to approve documents and funding to support housing rent for workers. Therefore, the time to implement the policy has been shortened.

60/63 provinces have enterprises and workers submitting applications. Of which, 02 provinces have no subjects: Lai Chau and Dien Bien. In addition, Cao Bang province reported that as of August 10, 2022, no enterprises requested support.

However, up to now, the implementation of the policy to support housing rent for workers is still slow.

Nghe An strives to complete the document approval progress by August 15.

After receiving the policy, the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs coordinated with the Management Board of the Southeast Economic Zone, districts, cities and towns to review, estimate the number and budget to implement the policy to support housing rent for workers in the area. The Department reported and estimated the number and budget to implement the policy to support housing rent for workers.

After reviewing and clearly identifying the subjects, the situation of enterprises, and the actual workers who have been working at the enterprises, Nghe An has basically completed the appraisal of the documents, with more than 4,000 subjects supported by this policy. As of August 11, 2022, the whole province has received and appraised 3,500 workers with a budget of more than 3 billion VND.

Luxshare ICT Company has 5,000 workers who are staying in the company's free dormitory, so they are not eligible for support. Photo: Archive

However, the progress of paying housing support funds to workers in Nghe An province in the past time has been slow due to: Employers preparing and submitting late application documents because they want to combine 3 months into one procedure, such as the case of Minh Anh - Kim Lien Garment Joint Stock Company and some enterprises in VSIP Industrial Park; Some large enterprises located outside economic zones and industrial parks were initially included in statistics to develop support plans, however, after review, they were not included in the list of subjects; Some enterprises in industrial parks have arranged dormitories for workers but do not collect money such as Luxshare ICT Company (up to 5,000 people) so they are not eligible for support.

Ensuring support payments to workers in August

Minister Dao Ngoc Dung requested the fastest payment of housing support money for workers. Photo: Archive

Concluding the conference, Minister Dao Ngoc Dung affirmed: Although the policy implementation has been thoroughly implemented by the provinces with a spirit of urgency and profound humanity. However, due to the large number of workers with many groups of subjects, especially in provinces and cities with a large number of enterprises, the disbursement rate in many places is still low. This comes from many reasons, some of which are due to the localities themselves being inflexible and rigid in the procedure review process. Some places have created unnecessary procedures, prolonging the review of documents. This requires localities to seriously implement the inspection of each stage and each position to overcome this problem.

“To complete the payment schedule in August, localities need to focus on propaganda so that businesses and workers can submit their applications on August 15. The applications that have been received must be promptly appraised and approved, and then the money must be promptly disbursed, in a rolling manner, with payments made as they are approved. After today, it is necessary to thoroughly understand the timeline for receiving applications and to complete the payment by August 30,” the Minister requested.

The Minister stated: Localities must also organize inspection teams to inspect the progress, approval process, and payment appraisal. In the future, the Ministry will directly inspect localities with low disbursement rates.

In particular, localities (Dong Nai, Hai Duong, Dak Nong) with low disbursement rates will have to clearly inform about difficulties in the implementation process.

“Localities must consider this a key task, so that payment can be made as quickly as possible, and money must reach workers as soon as possible in accordance with the humane spirit of the Government" - Minister Dao Ngoc Dung emphasized.