2,000 billion to save the drought: Crops are dying of thirst, but ministries are still meeting to discuss... disbursement

2,000 billion VND from the surplus capital for upgrading and renovating National Highway 1A was approved and assigned to the Ministry of Planning and Investment to allocate to localities affected by the recent drought and salinity to provide urgent relief. But half a year has passed, 3 months from now, the drought cycle will repeat, and no money has been disbursed. This is a task that the Ministry of Planning and Investment has not yet completed...

On the morning of August 25, Minister - Head of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung, as Head of the Prime Minister's Working Group, inspected the implementation of tasks, conclusions and directions of the Government and the Prime Minister, conducting the first inspection at the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Minister Mai Tien Dung summarized that the Government for the 2016-2021 term has unanimously agreed to act according to the Prime Minister's oath of determination to build an honest Government, a creative Government, an action-oriented Government. And a creative Government must operate on the basis of the rule of law, must innovate and create for the people and businesses. Instead of rigid administrative management, it must shift to a service model, creating the most favorable conditions for people and businesses in production and business activities.

Ministers Mai Tien Dung (left) and Nguyen Chi Dung at the working session on the morning of August 25.

The Government spokesman also emphasized the Prime Minister's recent instructions on tightening administration from the central to grassroots levels, reducing hassles, reducing tariffs, and issuing decrees regulating laws, especially the Investment and Enterprise Law.

These matters are directly related to the activities of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, with the goal of creating the best conditions for people and businesses, eliminating all sub-licenses, so that 2016 can truly be the year of business start-ups. Accordingly, all issues under the responsibility of proposing and advising the Ministry of Planning and Investment will be considered.

In the spirit of "cannot continue to shoot into the air" but must "shoot" with a target, purpose, and must be inspected by the Prime Minister, Minister Mai Tien Dung affirmed that this is the main idea of ​​the head of the Government when establishing the Prime Minister's working group to inspect the implementation of the Prime Minister's and Government's directive tasks.

Accordingly, in August, the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance are the two general economic ministries selected to conduct the first inspection and supervision to report to the Government in the regular meeting of August, scheduled to take place early next week.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said he understood that the working session was not an inspection, but the working group came to urge the implementation of the Prime Minister's instructions because considering this an inspection would be too serious and heavy, and usually there must be signs of violations before an inspection is conducted.

In response to this point of view, the head of the working group emphasized that this is an inspection, supervision, and examination to force any unit that has not done correctly or has not complied with the Prime Minister's and Government's instructions to correct its activities. Therefore, although the working group's activities are very new and may be very controversial, they still have to be carried out for the common good. The Government and the Prime Minister have assigned many tasks to the ministries, and there are many unfinished and overdue tasks, while "there are things that cannot wait."

Among the 15 assigned tasks that the Government Office classified as uncompleted for the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the head of the working group directly "queried" the allocation of 2,000 billion VND to overcome drought and salinity for the Mekong Delta provinces in early 2016. This is an urgent task assigned to be implemented immediately, from the surplus capital of more than 10,000 billion VND to expand and upgrade National Highway 1A and Ho Chi Minh Road through the Central Highlands.

According to the head of the General Department of the Government Office, although the amount of money is not much, this is considered urgent and should have been allocated to localities in May and June, but it has been delayed.

Minister of Planning and Investment: I myself am very impatient because the drought and salinity cycle is coming soon but no province has been able to withdraw a single cent of support money.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment wants to allocate equally, each province affected by drought and salinity will receive about 80 billion VND to immediately solve urgent problems such as dredging reservoirs, opening canals to bring water to the fields... but the Ministry of Agriculture wants to include some unfinished projects of the industry to have more capital to implement. 2000 billion VND is stuck up to now, after many meetings, finally had to accept adding a few small categories as requested by the agricultural industry.

Confirming that he had attended at least three meetings at the Government on this issue, Minister - Head of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung sighed: "The Prime Minister's policy is to urgently handle the drought and salinity situation, simplifying procedures for immediate implementation. But now, so many coffee and pepper plants have died from drought for a long time, we cannot wait for the ministries to finish meeting."

According to the head of the working group, if this had been done since last May or June, it could have brought about many direct results. When the local authorities were informed about this support solution, they were very happy because they thought they would have money immediately to save rice and coffee, without having to wait. But the result was like that.

Minister Mai Tien Dung: "We cannot sit on our laurels and then divide and assign work.

“We cannot sit on our laurels and assign tasks. Unfinished tasks must be identified, the main cause is subjective and it may be due to the Ministry's leaders not being thorough. I request the Ministry of Planning and Investment to pay close attention and learn from experience in the management and direction of the leaders because whether or not things run quickly depends on the departments and divisions, they have to urge and supervise a lot, if the Ministry's leaders have a lot of work, they will miss it right away" - said the head of the Government Office.

Regarding the allocation of 2,000 billion VND to rescue the drought, according to Minister Mai Tien Dung, when there was such a difference in opinion with the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Planning and Investment should have proactively reported to the Government immediately. If they had just sat and waited for a consensus, "the crops would have died of thirst long ago."

According to Dan Tri