Enabling people to take on 'two roles'

Improving leadership capacity in villages and hamlets

As a civil servant in the statistical office of the People's Committee of Tho Thanh Commune (Yen Thanh), comrade Nguyen Quang Bien was assigned to take on the additional role of Secretary of the Don Dua Hamlet Party Cell. This is a special hamlet, with no local party members, 6/6 party cell members are cadres, civil servants, and part-time activists in the commune.

Office work in the commune is quite busy, but comrade Nguyen Quang Bien confided: With the responsibility of a party member and when accepting the job, one must make efforts, arrange and organize time scientifically to take on both "roles". Experience in leadership and direction, in addition to taking advantage of the direct leadership and direction of the commune Party Committee, the Party cell assigns specific tasks and tasks, promotes the role and responsibility of each party member closely; mobilizes the participation of the command committee, the front work committee of the hamlet and seeks support from the parish council for the common movement.

Especially in mobilizing people to donate land, property, and contribute to building new rural areas and advanced new rural areas with a fairly complete traffic system; the hamlet cultural house is being newly built with a total cost of about 1.5 billion VND.

The rural traffic system and cultural house in Don Dua hamlet, Tho Thanh commune (Yen Thanh) have been invested synchronously; Don Dua hamlet cultural house has been newly invested in construction through mobilizing people's strength. Photo: Mai Hoa

Taking on the role of Party Cell Secretary of the special hamlet - hamlet 6, Nghi Phu commune (Vinh city), comrade Nguyen Van Duong - Deputy Commander of the Commune Military Command is always concerned.promote the leadership role of the Party celland the voice of the party secretary in the village.

The difficulty of the Party cell is that all 8/8 Party members are cadres, civil servants, and non-professional workers in the commune; there are certain difficulties in connecting with and understanding the locality. However, every month, on the basis of closely following the tasks of the Commune Party Committee, the Party cell clearly identifies key tasks to issue resolutions, focus on leadership; promote the role of organizations in the political system in the hamlet; the role of closely following, guiding, and urging Party members in carrying out political tasks. Such as propagating and bringing the Party and State's policies and guidelines into life; propagating and orienting to create conditions for people to expand their professions and services; environmental sanitation, land management, collection of taxes, funds, and fees; cultural and sports activities; encouraging learning; ensuring security and order...

Assessing the leadership role of Party Cell 6, Comrade Nguyen Thi Thuy - Secretary of Nghi Phu Commune Party Committee shared: Every year, Party Cell 6 is always assessed to have completed its tasks well. Personally, the Party Cell Secretary is always worried and concerned about fulfilling the assigned tasks in the Party Cell. In addition to Party Cell 6, Nghi Phu Commune has 2 more Party Cells, Party Cells 4 and 5, which also increase the number of non-professional activists in the commune to become Party Cell Secretaries.

Although the conditions in these areas are difficult, there are no local party members like Party cell 6 or few like Party cell 4 with only 1/8 party members, or Party cell 5 with only 4/9 party members; but thanks to the selection of experienced, capable, prestigious people with the ability to gather and create strength to take on the role of Party cell secretary, the movement in these hamlets has developed, creating resonance with the general movement of the commune.

Nam Dan district met and had a dialogue with leaders of Party committees and authorities with block and hamlet cadres on September 22, 2022. Photo: Thanh Le

The assignment of cadres, civil servants, and non-professional workers at the commune level to take on the positions of secretaries, deputy secretaries of party cells, and block and hamlet chiefs is currently being implemented in many localities in the province. For example, in Quynh Luu district, according to a report from the District Party Committee's Organization Board, there are currently 9 communes with 28 cadres, civil servants, and non-professional workers at the commune level working as party cell secretaries in hamlets. Or in Yen Thanh district, 20/39 communes and towns have increased the number of people working at the commune level working as party cell secretaries, with a total of 34 people. Thanh Chuong district has a total of 26 commune cadres working as party cell secretaries and hamlet and hamlet chiefs (16 party cell secretaries, 10 hamlet and hamlet chiefs); including 2 cadres, civil servants and 24 non-professional cadres at the commune level in 17 communes.

This policy, according to the reflection of localities, is a situational solution to consolidate forces, improve leadership capacity, fighting strength of Party cells and operational efficiency of organizations in thepolitical systemin villages and hamlets. Talking about situational solutions, for two reasons. Firstly, in these hamlets there is a lack of personnel, the reason being that the hamlets do not have or have few local party members; secondly, although the hamlets have many party members, they are mainly elderly party members who cannot handle the work, the young people go to work far away or are not interested in Party and people's work, and there is a lack of people with capacity, experience, and prestige to take on Party work in the hamlets and hamlets.

Leaders of Cat Van commune (Thanh Chuong) discussed with officials and people about the situation in the village and hamlet. Photo: Thanh Duy

Need to pay attention to policies

Blocks, hamlets, villages, and hamlets that have been reinforced with commune cadres to work as secretaries and hamlet chiefs are often in difficult and special areas; in addition to requiring capacity, cadres must also have investment and be truly concerned, responsible, and even have to sacrifice personal interests. According to some "insiders", when participating in hamlet work, ceremonies, and joys, hamlet cadres must be present to share with their own "pocket" money; including time, if they are only commune cadres or civil servants, they can take a day off "generously", but when they also take on hamlet work, they may not have a day off...

In some positions of full-time cadres and civil servants, the specialized work in the commune is quite a lot, requiring cadres to try and make efforts to fulfill "two roles". Therefore, the general mentality of cadres and civil servants today is not to take on additional "roles" in the hamlet but because of the responsibility of party members, they stand up to shoulder the burden. Therefore, in some localities, cadres, civil servants, and non-professional activists in the commune have to take turns being party cell secretaries and village heads in difficult areas.

Although it adds work and difficulties, the additional allowance for this team is not guaranteed. Resolution No. 22 of the Provincial People's Council issued in December 2019 stipulates allowances for commune-level cadres and civil servants concurrently holding non-professional positions in communes, wards and towns; non-professional workers in communes, wards and towns and in hamlets, blocks and villages who concurrently hold other non-professional positions are entitled to a concurrent allowance equal to 75% of the allowance for concurrent non-professional positions.

That is, currently, according to regulations, full-time cadres (party secretaries, deputy party secretaries, chairmen of the Fatherland Front Committee and mass organizations) and commune-level civil servants who concurrently hold the positions of party cell secretaries, village and hamlet chiefs are not entitled to any additional benefits other than their official salary. This is creating an unfair situation in the dedication and contribution of cadres.

According to comrade Nguyen Trung Dung - Secretary of Vinh Tan Ward Party Committee (Vinh City), in Vinh Tan Ward, in the past, there were some blocks that had difficulties in developing local party members and the cadre work there was also difficult, so the ward Party Committee had to mobilize and assign cadres and civil servants to concurrently hold the position of Party cell secretaries, but there was no allowance to pay and encourage them during the performance of their duties. Therefore, the province needs to study and have policies for commune-level cadres and civil servants to concurrently hold the position of secretaries for blocks and hamlets. This is also the concern of many cadres working on cadre organization and the concern of grassroots cadres at present, suggesting that all levels need to study and resolve this issue.

Thanks to the dedication and responsibility of the village cadres, the new rural construction movement in Nghia Dan district has created high consensus among the people. Photo: Minh Thai