The Prime Minister issued a decision to support local budgets to prevent and fight the Covid-19 epidemic.

According to the Decision, the funding for implementing specific policies (guaranteed by the State budget) in preventing and fighting the Covid-19 epidemic is prescribed in Article 1 of Resolution No. 37/NQ-CP dated March 29, 2020 of the Government.

Funding for repairing facilities and purchasing medical equipment for centralized quarantine and isolation treatment units to prevent and control the Covid-19 epidemic according to the direction of the National Steering Committee on Covid-19 Prevention and Control and the guidance of the Ministry of Health.

The Decision clearly states the support mechanism from the Central budget as follows: For mountainous provinces and the Central Highlands, the Central budget supports 70% of the actual state budget expenditure according to regulations.

For the remaining provinces and centrally run cities: Provinces and cities with a rate of regulating revenue allocation to the central budget of 50% or more proactively use local budget reserves for implementation.

Nam Can Border Guard Station, Ky Son (Nghe An) set up a checkpoint to prevent and fight the Covid-19 epidemic. Photo: Thanh Cuong

Provinces and cities with the rate of regulating revenue distribution to the central budget below 50%: The central budget supports 30% of the support from the state budget.

For localities that cannot balance their remaining budgets, the central budget will support 50% of the support from the state budget.

Localities use up to 50% of local budget reserves and up to 70% of provincial financial reserve funds to prevent and control the Covid-19 epidemic.

In case localities spend a large amount of money on Covid-19 prevention and control, if the guaranteed local budget exceeds local resources, including: 50% of local budget reserve (including all 3 levels of province, district, commune) and 70% of local financial reserve fund, the central budget will supplement the difference exceeding local resources so that provinces and cities have enough resources to implement.

The Decision clearly states that the Ministry of Finance, based on the provisions of this Decision and the actual expenditure from the State budget to support epidemic prevention and control, will be compiled, reported, reviewed, and supported by the provincial People's Committees from the central budget for each locality and periodically report to the Prime Minister on the implementation results. In case the epidemic occurs on a large scale and the local budget does not have enough resources to implement epidemic prevention and control, based on the proposal of the provincial People's Committees, the Ministry of Finance will supplement a part of the budget for the locality to implement (up to 70% of the central budget support level).

The Chairmen of the People's Committees of provinces and centrally run cities, based on actual conditions and the capacity of local budgets, decide to supplement the level of financial support for people under medical quarantine and people directly participating in epidemic prevention compared to the prescribed spending regime and spending level.