The National Assembly discussed the proposal to reduce the number of Vice Chairmen of People's Councils at provincial and district levels.

One of the contents that the National Assembly deputies focused on discussing was decentralization and delegation of power; reducing the number of Vice Chairmen of the People's Councils at the provincial and district levels from two Vice Chairmen to one Vice Chairman.

Most of the opinions of the National Assembly deputies were that, to ensure the operation of the People's Council, the number of Vice Chairmen of the People's Council should not be reduced. Deputies Nguyen Tuan Anh (Binh Phuoc) and Cao Dinh Thuong (Pho Tho) both agreed with option 2, which proposed to keep the current position.

Delegate Ton Ngoc Hanh (Binh Phuoc) said that there should be two Vice Chairmen of the People's Council at the provincial and district levels. The delegate analyzed that according to the Law on Organization of People's Councils and People's Committees in 2003, the Standing Committee of the People's Council includes the Vice Chairman and Standing Member of the People's Council, the Law on Organization of Local Government in 2015 stipulates that the Standing Committee of the People's Council includes the Chairman and two Vice Chairmen. Thus, the Law on Organization of Local Government has upgraded the position of Standing Member of the People's Council to Vice Chairman of the People's Council to facilitate work exchange, without increasing the payroll. Through the implementation process, the People's Council has promoted its tasks well, contributing to promoting the effectiveness of the People's Council. Therefore, reducing one Vice Chairman of the People's Council needs to be carefully considered, the delegate said.

Delegates of Nghe An Provincial People's Council voted to approve the draft Resolution confirming the results of the election to supplement the position of Provincial People's Committee member. Photo: Thanh Cuong

Also according to delegate Ton Ngoc Hanh, the plan to reduce the number of Vice Chairmen of the People's Councils "equally" in all localities including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City is unreasonable and unconvincing. According to the delegate, the implementation of streamlining the apparatus must ensure two parallel goals: a streamlined apparatus, not increasing the payroll but ensuring operational efficiency. If the specific conditions of each locality are not considered but only mechanically reduced, it will be ineffective and lead to frequent law amendments, the delegate noted.

According to the provisions of Article 82 of the Law on Organization of Local Government, the Vice Chairman of the People's Council assists the Chairman of the People's Council in conducting the meeting. If there is only one Vice Chairman of the People's Council in case of emergency or force majeure and he/she cannot attend the meeting of the People's Council, there will be no replacement to perform the work. In practice, elected bodies need to increase full-time representatives to improve operational efficiency, while the demands of voters and people on elected bodies are increasingly high, therefore, it is necessary to maintain the current number of full-time representatives, which is 2 Vice Chairmen of the Provincial People's Council, to effectively carry out supervision work and prepare the contents for the session, delegate Ton Ngoc Hanh suggested.

Sharing this view, delegate Tran Dinh Gia (Ha Tinh) said that currently, the People's Council is assigned many tasks, and the practical requirements are increasingly high, so reducing the number of Vice Chairmen of the People's Council as in the draft Law will not ensure meeting the work requirements of the People's Council, so it is necessary to keep it as the current regulations, maintaining 2 Vice Chairmen of the People's Council.

Meanwhile, referring to the number of Vice Chairmen of the People's Council at the provincial and district levels, delegate Tran Van Lam (Bac Giang) suggested that it is necessary to consider the number of these deputies in the overall positions and organization of the People's Council at the same level and on the basis of evaluating the performance of the local government in the past time. According to the delegate, the draft Law needs to clearly stipulate the ratio of full-time People's Council delegates in the total number of delegates, this is only a ratio to ensure that the organization of the People's Council operates professionally. Delegate Tran Van Lam raised the question, why does the National Assembly require to increase the ratio of full-time members in the future, while localities emphasize the issue of reducing the number of staff to regulate in the direction of reduction? Only when the number of full-time People's Council delegates is clearly determined will there be a basis to determine the number of Vice Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of the People's Council at the provincial and district levels.

According to delegate Tran Van Lam, if the apparatus arranges a full-time head, only one full-time deputy should be arranged to support. Reducing one Vice Chairman of the People's Council of a district or province should not be rigid, only "rigid" regulations on the full-time staffing of the People's Council. Depending on the conditions, the scale, nature, and requirements of each stage, 1 to 2 Vice Chairmen should be arranged accordingly. The number of deputies here will be within the total number of deputies prescribed at each level, delegate Tran Van Lam said.