The Revolution in Organizational Arrangement and Apparatus - Some Random Thoughts
The policy of restructuring the apparatus of state agencies nationwide, including departments, ministries, branches and local governments at all levels, is not new, so when hearing the two words "revolution", many people are still skeptical and cannot fully visualize everything.
Nguyen Phuc Nam Dan• March 24, 2025
The policy of restructuring the apparatus of State agencies nationwide, including departments, ministries, branches and local governments at all levels, is not new, so when hearing the two words "revolution", many people are still skeptical and cannot fully visualize everything. It even seems that the long-standing concern of society is only focused on the issue of reducing State budget expenditures because the numbers given are too large...
Please allow me to boldly discuss a few issues as follows:
First of all, about the purpose:It is necessary to fully understand that the purpose of this reorganization is not only to reduce State budget expenditure for the current apparatus. Other issues that are also extremely important are:
1, Strengthening the efficiency and effectiveness of State management, including ensuring the speed and accuracy in implementing policies and plans from the central to the grassroots level; 2, Serving the people and society better because policies and plans are not refracted during the implementation process to lower levels and people's opinions and feedback to higher levels are heard and processed more quickly; 3, Reducing expenditures for the management apparatus and increasing income for staff of the system. 4, Finally, creating better conditions for socio-economic development, especially in economics - a field that we have long seen as being helpless due to the inability to resolve the contradiction between economic space and administrative space...
Monday,About the model's intention: Everyone knows that in the world there are many models of administrative organization, some countries follow the 4-level model, some countries follow the 3-level model (common in Western and Northern Europe) and there are even countries following the 5-level model and in some countries there is a mixture of 3 and 4 or 4 and 5 levels.
Monitoring social networks shows that most people "understand" the policy of eliminating the district level, but there are also quite a few opinions that with the expansion of communes as proposed, it should be considered "eliminating the commune level" rather than "eliminating the district level" and propose to approach the issue in this direction with another reason being that it will also save some costs when doing administrative procedures in the future.
I think there is a misunderstanding in this point of view, because the words “commune” and “district” are just ways of referring to administrative levels (in feudal times, they were sometimes called “tong” and “phu”). The most important thing here is: to govern society, States design administrative levels to manage and operate the country according to their own ideas, in accordance with historical circumstances and the development of the corresponding society. In each model, there is always a lowest level and a highest level (I emphasize this). The lowest level is what we have long called the base. The district level is the intermediate level at the local level, it is the transitional stage from the province to the base. So saying “abandoning the commune level” or “keeping the district level” is incorrect, but it should only be said “changing the way of calling the base level”. (By the way, in some countries - such as the US, for example, many administrative units are at the same level but have different names, corresponding to the State management authority of these entities).
Tuesday,Some issues to note in the process of implementing the policy to both achieve the goal soon and limit negativity and waste... This time, the Central Committee directed quickly and decisively, not being too perfectionist in the wording of the document, not wasting time solving a few trivial problems but with the spirit of "running and lining up at the same time", so in some situations we may feel like we are not prepared and not fully proactive. Examples of this situation are: the issue of handling assets (already and in the process of being formed), especially real estate, headquarters, land; handling unfinished tasks from the old model that will be left over; how to use human resources in the near future to both do a good job of ideological and psychological work for cadres who retire early, while avoiding wasting these resources and attracting and creating opportunities for talented and young people to serve in State organizations...
Wednesday,Regarding the names of new administrative units: The merger and consolidation of State agencies, which is agreed and supported by the majority of the people, is a very important foundation for quickly implementing the plans and tasks of rearranging the organization and apparatus. However, in turn, we have to face a rather complicated problem of merging which administrative units together and naming the new administrative units (commune, province, city directly under the Central Government). This problem is related to the psychology and feelings of the people, many people, including the writer, are inherently too familiar with the old values, deeply ingrained in the subconscious of each person, and moreover, many values have become the source of strength, the fulcrum, the motivation for each individual to live, work, and strive. The requirements and notes when naming new administrative units that the National Assembly Standing Committee mentioned in Article 6, Resolution No. 35 dated July 12, 2023 are only of principle:“…ensure national unity, be consistent with historical, traditional and cultural factors of the locality and respect the opinions of the majority of voters… In case of merging administrative units of the same level, it is encouraged to use one of the existing names of the administrative units before the merger to name the administrative unit formed after the arrangement.”, while the differences in viewpoints, psychology, and aspirations of the people are quite clear, it is indeed not simple and quite difficult to find a naming scheme for the merged units. Subjective thinking and hasty actions may not be successful or cause “resentment” in a part of the community, and may even create a situation for bad guys to discriminate, discriminate between regions, and cause conflicts among the people.
Therefore, it is necessary for the Party Committee, the government and the functional agencies to pay close attention to the propaganda work on ideology, awareness and methods so that the communities can sympathize, share and agree with this major policy of the Party, the State, and the local Party Committee and government. For example: how should the criteria for merging units together be soon developed and issued, and how should the names be determined?...
Boldly identify priority criteria, including clearly stating special cases (if any), try to quantify, limit general qualitative criteria for these criteria, avoid subjective thinking, leveling and oversimplifying the problem... Arrangement and naming options need to be explained very specifically, clearly and especially even though we have to "run and queue at the same time", we cannot ignore the processes and procedures to solve psychological and ideological problems for the people very thoughtfully. This is the time for us to implement well and effectively the motto "understand the people, be close to the people, listen to the people and speak so that the people listen".
The next thing that is also extremely important for the goals of the "revolution" to be achieved comprehensively is the operation of organizations and units after the arrangement. Obviously, life and the people require that, whatever we do, we must ensure that the movement of society is not blocked or stagnant, but must be smoother, more stable and develop more strongly. Specifically, we must still achieve the targets in the socio-economic development plan, and in the timely resolution of the daily legitimate and legal rights and interests of the people and businesses... The people are expecting a spirit of working with high responsibility from cadres in the political system at all levels.
We have not yet figured out how the Constitution, the Law on Government Organization, and the Law on Local Government Organization will be specifically amended and supplemented, but it is clear that the current functions and tasks of the district level will be re-defined, in which some authorities and tasks may be assigned to the provincial level, and some assigned to the grassroots level. In that context, a type of task will arise for the province and provincial-level sectors to take over the unfinished work of the district level and the old units. The mentality of indifference, not wanting to do "other people's work", the mentality of fear of making mistakes, mechanical thinking, rigidity... will have room to flourish. We must be careful so that this does not happen, affecting the effectiveness and efficiency of the revolution.
Finally, I would like to reiterate the author's point of view that the policy is correct, it is the inevitable destination of the future, but how successful it will be depends on how we do it!
