Aggressive or unrealistic?

(Baonghean) - After much debate over whether 1% or 30% of civil servants should "go to work with an umbrella in the morning and go home with an umbrella in the evening," the Ministry of Interior recently announced a draft government decree to solicit public opinion on downsizing the workforce. According to the draft, over the six years from 2014 to 2020, the State will have to spend 8,000 billion VND to "recruit" 100,000 civil servants who receive salaries from taxpayers' money but do not work in the fields.

Upon hearing this news, many were initially excited, believing that the Ministry of Interior had recognized its mistake of recruiting a significant number of civil servants into the state payroll who only served to "impoverish the country," and was now resolutely correcting it. This action also created hope that a considerable amount of money collected from taxpayers' funds, long used to support these useless civil servants, would be invested in development. The news also sparked hope that the bureaucratic system, heavily reliant on "oppressing the people," would improve. However, upon calm reflection, this corrective measure seems like throwing stones into a pond of weeds – impractical. This concern stems not only from a lack of trust but also from concrete figures and assessments from those in positions of responsibility.

With 2.8 million civil servants currently, if Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc's assessment that 30% of them are "just going to work without doing anything" is correct, then over 900,000 people should be dismissed. Meanwhile, the draft decree proposes a solution that will only eliminate 100,000 people within six years. This leaves over 800,000 people whose function is merely "impoverishing the country" to be dismissed. They will have to wait for another decree to be issued at least seven years from now, by which time many of them will likely have already "landed safely." If the percentage of civil servants who "just go to work without doing anything" is only 1%, as Minister of Home Affairs Hoang Tuan Anh stated, then only 28,000 people should be dismissed. Thus, the upcoming decree will unjustly punish a large number of diligent civil servants, up to 72,000. Given the long-standing mindset of relying on state budget funding, if the draft decree is approved and implemented, it remains to be seen whether the Ministry of Interior will have enough "evidence" to "convict" those named, or whether it will fall into a "maze" of petitions from civil servants who are classified as eligible for early retirement due to a lack of clear classification.

Furthermore, 80% of the civil servants targeted by the draft decree are those with only 5 years left until retirement. These are individuals with considerable work experience. Moreover, while allowing them to retire early might reduce budget expenditures, it would increase the burden on the social insurance fund. Is this advisable?

And finally, the issue of downsizing the civil service is not new; it has been raised for a long time. However, in reality, the more calls for reductions are made, the larger the bureaucracy becomes. Therefore, the question of whether the administrative apparatus will shrink or expand further, as it has for many years, after 100,000 "umbrella-carrying" civil servants are dismissed remains unanswered.

ESTABLISHMENT

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