Nghe An: Saving hundreds of billions of dong from project appraisal, 'tightening' public investment costs
(Baonghean) - Based on the implementation of Decision No. 166/QD-TTg of the Prime Minister and the annual Action Program on practicing thrift and combating waste, Nghe An has proactively deployed solutions in localities and units. Thanks to that, in the first 6 months of 2020, hundreds of billions of VND have been saved for the budget and waste has been gradually reduced.
Review, cut
As an advisory body, Nghe An Finance Department has reviewed and directed departments, branches and localities right from the budget allocation stage. Specifically, based on comparison with the standard norms, the Finance Department has proactively advised the province to allocate the correct budget to units, thereby cutting investment by 233.6 billion VND.
In particular, through the appraisal of investment projects, technical economic reports, and construction design estimates, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has cut 94 million VND based on the appraisal of 14 projects/total estimate of 187 billion VND; the Department of Transport has cut 84.7 billion VND based on the appraisal of 34 projects/total estimate of 679.3 billion VND; the Department of Construction has cut 43.3 billion VND after appraising 61 projects/value of 1,094.5 billion VND.
The Department of Industry and Trade cut 10 billion VND after appraising 30 projects/total value of 125 billion VND; the District People's Committee cut 50.98 billion VND after appraising 520 projects/total value of 806.39 billion VND.
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| Inspection at the resettlement area in hamlet 5, Nghi Phu commune, where progress is behind schedule, causing budget waste. Photo: Nguyen Hai |
In addition, to save costs, online bidding procedures have been implemented. Currently, the whole province has bid online for 25% of the bidding, of which the Department of Transport has 16/26 bidding packages; the People's Committees of districts have organized 95/417 bidding packages. The appraisal and approval of project/work settlement have been basically completed, ensuring quality and progress.
In the field of budget preparation, appraisal, approval, settlement, management and use of budget funds, thanks to the centralized direction of the Party Committee and the active management of the government, 275.15 billion VND has been saved, of which, on the basis of building the budget estimate for the 2020 budget, the full cost of implementing new policies and regimes has been calculated and a 10% reduction in regular expenditure savings has been implemented according to regulations, resulting in savings of 260.11 billion VND.
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| Graphics: Lam Tung |
Implement financial and staffing autonomy and assign operating expenses to agencies and organizations, thereby reducing budget expenditures to support management activities by VND 15,044 billion.
In the first 6 months of 2020, the inspection discovered a total value of violations of 18.94 billion VND, of which, it was recommended to recover 12.4 billion VND and handle other cases of 6.54 billion VND; 8.52 billion VND was recovered, reaching 68.7%.
Based on the inspection, examination and supervision programs of the projects, the province has recovered 38.27 hectares of land, proposed to handle 1.04 billion VND; successfully organized auctions of mineral exploitation rights in 9 areas to ensure transparency, limiting the loss of resource tax revenue.
In the field of water, sea and island resources, through inspection and monitoring activities, the natural resources sector has sanctioned 9 cases of administrative violations with a total fine of 143 million VND; established 2 inspection teams, reviewed and compared the output of aquatic products and some related contents; through inspection and monitoring activities, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the provincial border guards have sanctioned over 20 cases of illegal aquatic and marine exploitation at sea with a total fine of nearly 900 million VND.
Promote the practice of saving
In the context of public investment being cut and promoting autonomy and administrative spending, practicing thrift and fighting waste is a mandatory task and an inevitable trend. To do this, departments, branches and localities must not only carefully review the budget allocation, appraisal, approval and final settlement to cut unnecessary items, but also calculate to save internal spending, serving the common goal.
The Department of Transport is one of the units that has made many efforts in modernizing the administrative management system with software and administrative reform, thereby saving costs for the industry and travel time for people.
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| Issuing a driving license has been reduced from 5 days to 1 day and there is a service to pay by post, reducing time and costs for people. Photo: Nguyen Hai |
In the first 6 months of the year, through the review, the largest amount of investment costs for the budget (84.7 billion VND) was cut. At the meeting to give comments on the direction of saving, the Department of Transport requested that localities must take drastic action to focus on leading and directing the implementation of compensation and site clearance work according to plan, especially key projects, projects serving investment promotion, creating momentum to promote socio-economic development and minimizing the increase in estimates, increasing costs, causing waste of investment capital.
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| Slow-moving infrastructure projects cause a huge waste of public investment capital. Photo: Nguyen Hai |
Hopefully, with the drastic and synchronous participation of the province and departments, branches and localities, the situation of slow disbursement of public investment capital, which is a "blood clot" slowing down the pace of socio-economic development, will be resolved, thereby contributing to reducing damage and waste of investment capital.