Nghe An strives to remove difficulties and speed up public investment disbursement progress

Focus on disbursement direction

According to the plan, in 2022, Nghe An was assigned by the Government to have a master plan.public investmentis 9,389.98 billion VND. The Provincial People's Council and Provincial People's Committee have built the foundation and allocated 100% of the capital plan in detail to departments, branches and localities.

Of which, 4,271.3 billion VND is from the central budget (including domestic capital of 3,789.16 billion VND, foreign capital of 482.14 billion VND) and 5,118.68 billion VND from local budget sources.

Construction of a drainage ditch to prevent flooding on National Highway 1A through Nghi Kim Commune, Vinh City. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Based on the above allocated capital, from the beginning of the year, the Provincial People's Committee issued documents to thoroughly grasp and direct the implementation of key tasks and solutions to implement the socio-economic development plan and state budget estimates for 2022; at the same time, issued documents to urge the disbursement of public investment in 2021 and implement the public investment plan for 2022.

The Provincial People's Committee continuously has documents directing to speed up progress andODA capital disbursement, foreign loans in 2022 - a source with many problems and a fairly low disbursement rate.

From the beginning of the year, immediately after receiving the annual plan from the Prime Minister and the Provincial People's Council, the Provincial People's Committee organized a province-wide conference to deploy the plan, and at the same time directed the Department of Planning and Investment to notify in detail the 2022 public investment plan to each department, branch, district and town for implementation.

The province also established working groups to direct and promote the implementation of the 2022 plan, assigning Vice Chairmen of the Provincial People's Committee and departments, branches and sectors to monitor, direct and urge the progress of projects; monthly, the interdisciplinary team reports on the disbursement progress to the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee.

Construction of the coastal national highway through Nghi Loc district. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Thanks to drastic solutions, by May 31, 2022, the concentrated public investment capital managed by the province had disbursed VND 1,456.4 billion, reaching 25.1% of the plan, and assigned details of VND 5,801.72 billion.

Specifically, expenditure from local budget sources disbursed 208.49 billion VND, reaching 13.62% of the plan; expenditure to balance local budget according to principles and scoring criteria: disbursed 122.67 billion VND, reaching 9.82% of the plan; expenditure from land use revenue was 81.21 billion VND, reaching 31.85% of the plan; expenditure from lottery revenue was 4.6 billion VND, reaching 17.69% of the plan.

Expenditure from the central budget was 1,247.91 billion VND, reaching 29.22% of the plan, of which expenditure from domestic capital was 1,215.92 billion VND, reaching 32.09% of the plan, expenditure from foreign loans was 31.98 billion VND, reaching 6.63% of the plan.

After being upgraded to National Highway 48B, the road section through Son Hai-Lach Quen commune (Quynh Thuan) is being upgraded by the Department of Transport. Photo: Nguyen Hai

According to the report of the Department of Planning and Investment, along with the above disbursement items, the disbursement plan of previous years extended to 2022 also achieved some specific results. As of May 31, 2022, the local budget source of previous years extended to 2022 has disbursed 6.5 billion VND, reaching 10% of the extended plan approved by competent authorities of 65.09 billion VND.

The above disbursement results show that, with the disbursement of nearly 2,400 billion VND, reaching nearly 26% (as of May 31), Nghe An is a province with a fairly good disbursement progress in the country (previously, according to the report of the Ministry of Finance, as of April 30, Nghe An disbursed 17.7% of the plan, lower than the national average, so it is one of the localities under the Government's establishment of Working Group No. 1 to review and urge).

(Excerpt from the province's working report with the Government Working Group on urging public investment in May)

Difficulties arise that need to be resolved decisively.

Despite many efforts, due to objective reasons, the disbursement rate has not yet met the set requirements.

The representative of the Department of Finance said that in principle, the disbursement progress is spread evenly over the quarters, and 50% of the capital must be disbursed in the middle of the fiscal year. However, at the beginning of the year, projects mainly do procedures to prepare investment documents, bids, etc., which take a lot of time and the actual construction volume is not yet available, so the disbursement rate in the first and second quarters is low.

Specifically, in 2022, there will be 80 new projects started and 18 transitional projects but implementing new bidding packages with capital plans accounting for 48% of the total assigned plan, so the bidding procedure process takes quite a long time.

The bottleneck of Nguyen Sy Sach extended road in Phong Quang hamlet, Hung Hoa commune, due to the unfinished resettlement area, the project was forced to stop, waiting for the construction of the resettlement area. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Compared to previous years, in addition to the reasons for legal procedures and regulations affecting the disbursement rate, in 2022, another reason affecting the disbursement progress is the price of input materials such asiron, steel, petrol increaseup to 30%, causing the cost of transporting soil, rock and construction materials to also increase.

A representative of Tay An Company, a construction contractor in Nghi Phu (Vinh City), said: The increase in basic material prices has forced the unit and other contractors to wait and see, even though they don't want to, and to complete procedures to adjust the project.

The North-South expressway bridge over National Highway 48B in Quynh My commune (Quynh Luu) is assessed to be progressing well, contributing to speeding up the progress of the Nghi Son - Dien Chau package. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Representative of a contractor constructing a bridge on the routeNorth-South ExpresswayThe section through Quynh My (Quynh Luu) also shared: If the construction demand was before the time when steel and gasoline prices increased, it would be better, but if construction started from the end of 2021 until now, the cost and price will increase by 15-20% of the value. The larger the project, the more pressure the contractor will have to bear and the current increase in input material costs will be difficult to bear.

A representative of the Vinh City Construction Investment Project Management Board confirmed: Due to the impact of rising input prices of raw materials and fuels, many projects have been delayed, and the progress of public investment disbursement has also been affected. The reason is that contractors of large projects are currently working at a slow pace, waiting for the City People's Council to approve the adjustment of the total investment. In fact, at the meeting on the afternoon of June 9, the Vinh City People's Council approved 39 investment projects, including adjusting the total investment of some projects to promptly complete adjustment procedures and carry out construction on schedule.

For projects using foreign loans, the capital scale is quite modest, in 2022 only 482 billion VND with 7 projects, of which 1 project has not completed site clearance because according to the sponsor's request, the site clearance plan for the entire route must be approved to pay before starting construction, 2 transitional projects are currently carrying out construction consultancy bidding procedures, 1 new project must bid internationally...

Notably, the bidding process for packages using ODA capital must be conducted in two stages (inviting interest and bidding) and must seek the donor's "no objection" opinion before approving the contractor selection results and signing the contract, so it takes more time.

Reality also shows that poor site clearance and investment preparation are also the reasons why many projects are behind schedule and cannot be disbursed as planned. A typical example is the N5 Crossroad Project - Southeast Economic Zone with a central budget capital of 403 billion VND, with 2.3 km/6.58 km still stuck in site clearance; ProjectNguyen Si Sach street extension(Vinh City); The main traffic project along the center of Quan Hanh town, Nghi Loc district, with a planned capital of 84.6 billion VND from the central budget, is stuck in procedures for investing in the resettlement area...

At the latest working session with representatives of the Land Clearance Boards of districts and towns, comrade Le Hong Vinh - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee urged and requested localities to be more drastic in speeding up the progress of handing over the land for the North - South Expressway to Project Management Board 6, Ministry of Transport. Photo: Nguyen Hai

Faced with new difficulties and obstacles, at the working session with Working Group No. 1 on urging the progress of public investment disbursement, Nghe An province proposed that the Central Government promptly consider amending the authority to extend implementation and disbursement according to the Law on Public Investment, shortening the procedural process for ODA projects, applying online contractor selection...

In addition, since the end of May, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee has continuously held inspection and working sessions to urge and remove difficulties related to site clearance and disbursement in key investment projects. Hopefully, with the timely participation of leaders and authorities at all levels, it will create favorable conditions to adjust the scale and total investment of the project to restart construction to complete the target of disbursing 100% of investment capital by the end of the year as committed by the province to the Central Government.

Nguyen Hai