Synchronously implement many solutions to promote the progress of public investment capital disbursement

Attending the discussion session were comrade Thai Thanh Quy - Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council, Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation, delegate of Vinh City constituency; Ngoc Kim Nam - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, delegate of Do Luong district constituency; Nguyen Thi Kim Chi - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Officials' Party Committee, delegate of the Provincial People's Council at Cua Lo town constituency.

Comrade Phan Duc Dong - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Secretary of Vinh City Party Committee, Provincial People's Council delegate of Vinh City constituency, Head of Group 1 chaired the discussion session.

SCREENING AND PRIORITIZING PUBLIC INVESTMENT CAPITAL FOR PROJECTS WITH GOOD DISBURSEMENT

Delegates focused on discussing the socio-economic situation in the first 6 months of the year, the socio-economic development plan for the last 6 months of the year, especially solutions to accelerate the disbursement of public investment capital; review and recover suspended projects; and resolve difficulties in the agricultural sector caused by complicated weather developments.

Regarding the disbursement of public investment capital in the first 6 months of 2023, some sources of disbursement were low such as foreign capital (13.7%), national target programs (19.18%), new extended capital (14.78%), and 13 districts, cities and 29 investment units disbursed below the average level of the province. Delegate Tran Phan Long, Cua Lo town, proposed that the Provincial People's Committee direct the review of investors, construction contractors, and consultants to assess the capacity of each unit, thereby having solutions to screen and prioritize capital allocation for investors and projects with good disbursement.

Delegates also requested clarification of the causes and responsibilities for the situation of long-standing unrecovered advances and the large backlog of completed projects that have not yet been settled.

Regarding the proposal from Cua Lo town, delegate Tran Phan Long suggested paying attention to and directing the revocation of slow-progressing projects in the town such as: Golf course project; North Lan Chau island resort; Lan Chau and Song Ngu ecological villa complex project, sports and entertainment area.

In particular, regarding the Lan Chau and Song Ngu ecological resort villa complex project, the delegate from Cua Lo town said that the project progress stated in the investment certificate is to be completed and put into operation in 2020, but so far only a few items have been completed, many items have not been implemented and there have been many violations during the implementation process.

Propose that the Provincial People's Committee adjust the planning in the direction of eliminating some items of the above project and request the investor to implement, adjust, and dismantle items built in violation of the planning; hand over a part of the area to integrate with the overall planning of the park east of Binh Minh Street.

In order to create initiative for investors in disbursing public investment capital, delegate Nguyen Huu An - Chairman of the People's Committee of Hoang Mai town proposed that the People's Council, the Provincial People's Committee, departments, branches and sectors consider annually allocating the total capital of a project, without dividing it into items such as construction, site clearance, etc., so as not to have to adjust the capital structure when practical problems arise.

Regarding the construction of the North-South Expressway project in the East section through Hoang Mai town, delegate An said that the investor and contractors mainly focused on constructing the main route; while the service road system and handling arising problems such as drainage, restoration of drainage ditches, etc. were implemented very slowly, causing frustration among the people; thereby, requesting the Provincial People's Council, Provincial People's Committee, Project Management Board 6 and the Ministry of Transport to promptly handle the matter.

Responding to the opinion of delegate Tran Phan Long, Director of the Department of Planning and Investment Pham Hong Quang said that at the recent online conference of the Government with localities, according to data from the Ministry of Finance, the province's public investment disbursement rate is higher than the national average; among the top 28 localities, ministries and branches with disbursement above average. However, the leader of the Department of Planning and Investment of Nghe An frankly admitted that the disbursement figure still does not meet the requirements and expectations of the province.

In order to disburse public investment capital to reach over 95% this year, in the last 6 months of the year, the province will continue to regularly monitor and report every 10 days to secretaries of districts, cities, town Party Committees, and investors to urge disbursement. The Party Committee of the Provincial People's Committee will issue a resolution to focus on directing to accelerate the disbursement of public investment capital; continue to maintain working groups chaired by Vice Chairmen of the Provincial People's Committee to inspect the disbursement progress of projects. In the first 6 months of this year alone, the delegations inspected 35 projects in 13 localities.

The Provincial People's Committee will continue to proactively review and transfer public investment capital as it did in the first 6 months of the year. Up to now, the capital sources under the authority of the Provincial People's Committee have transferred over 155 billion VND and are submitting to the Provincial People's Council to transfer over 77 billion VND of public investment capital from projects with slow disbursement or difficult disbursement to projects with good disbursement progress.

The Director of the Department of Planning and Investment of Nghe An said: The Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Party Executive Committee have directed the implementation of staff solutions; accordingly, investors and project management boards that are slow in disbursement will be reviewed and considered for replacement of staff; at the same time, investors will be transferred from weak investors or those with poor capacity to implement large, complex projects and works to more experienced investors.

Regarding the review and withdrawal of slow-progress projects in Cua Lo town, the Director of the Department of Planning and Investment also provided specific information. The Lan Chau and Song Ngu province's project of ecological resort villa complex, sports and entertainment area is being put on the list of slow-progress projects for review.

Regarding the opinion of the delegate of Hoang Mai town to create initiative for investors in disbursing public investment capital, the Director of the Department of Planning and Investment said that for a long time, this unit has basically allocated according to the recommendations of investors; at the same time, he said that in principle, he is ready to allocate as recommended.

Regarding the request to clarify the cause and responsibility for the backlog of completed projects that have not yet been settled, Deputy Director of the Department of Finance Nguyen Thanh Tung said that, through review, as of March 31, 2023, the whole province still has 4,390 backlog projects; of which 220 are provincial-level projects, the rest are district-level and commune-level projects as investors.

According to the leader of the Department of Finance, the main reason is that the district-level project management board has a "thin" force, so the work of synthesizing completed projects is still slow, especially for projects that have lasted for a long time, from 2014 or earlier; at the same time, the coordination between investors and consulting and construction units has been unable to be implemented in some cases because the contractor and consulting unit have dissolved.

Another reason is that the restructuring, merger, and dissolution of the project management board resulted in lost records; the Finance - Planning Department of the districts coordinated with the State Treasury to review the project's slow settlement without being decisive.

The leader of the Department of Finance also said that one of the reasons is that in the difficult situation, there are contractors who have been finalized, but when submitting the finalization to the State Treasury, it means that revenue must be accounted for, which leads to determining the amount of tax payable, so somewhere there are contractors and investors who are late in submitting the finalization report.

Regarding the solution, Deputy Director of the Department of Finance Nguyen Thanh Tung said that this agency has advised the Provincial People's Committee to propose 7 specific solutions to resolve the issue, such as: Continuing to base on regulations to urge the completion of documents according to instructions; at the same time, there are sanctions to punish investors and contractors who violate regulations on acceptance, payment of completed volume and final settlement of works.

Regarding the delegates' opinions on the outstanding advance payment balance that has not been recovered, delegate Nguyen Thanh Tung said that as of April 30, 2023, the outstanding advance payment balance is more than 69 billion VND. The reason is that the investor's project management board has dissolved, so there is no address to recover the advance payment; the contractor is bankrupt; the project is delayed and cannot be implemented; the project management board has merged and handed over to the investor; and there are problems with site clearance. Currently, the Department of Finance has advised the Provincial People's Committee on 9 solutions to resolve the issue.

THERE IS A FUNDAMENTAL SOLUTION TO PREVENT DROUGHT ALONG THE LAM RIVER

Expressing concern about the current complicated and harsh weather affecting people's lives and production, especially agricultural production along the Lam River, delegate Hoang Thi Hong Hanh, Do Luong district, proposed a long-term, fundamental solution, building a roadmap for investment, renovation and upgrading of pumping stations to meet irrigation water needs.

Responding to the delegates' opinions, Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Thanh Vinh said that he had analyzed the reasons that led to the localities after Do Luong bara along Lam river being at risk of water shortage for production such as the recent lack of minor floods, uneven weather, localized, and water-needing areas. The pumping station system has 74 stations but only 12 have been upgraded, the remaining stations have outdated technology from 20-30 years ago.

Faced with that situation, the industry has conducted a very careful survey and developed a project for summer-autumn crop production. It is expected that 6,000 hectares of rice will be affected by drought in the summer-autumn crop. Delegate Phung Thanh Vinh suggested that localities follow the project to have a production plan, depending on weather conditions to plant appropriate seeds; areas forecasted to be dry should change crops.

The Department has also proposed the Provincial People's Committee to allocate funds to upgrade 3 pumping stations along the Lam River, thereby solving drought problems for approximately 2,000 hectares of rice fields. In the long term, the Department is also approaching capital sources to upgrade the remaining pumping stations along the Lam River, build sluices on the Lam River to raise water levels and upgrade the Nam Nghe An irrigation system.

Speaking at the discussion session, regarding the investment in key projects in the province such as the North-South Expressway in the East through the province, coastal roads... Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the People's Council of Nghe An province Thai Thanh Quy suggested that districts, cities and towns with projects passing through parallel with investors to help the province have a strong commitment to investors; but at the same time, in the face of the consequences, influences and direct impacts of the project on the lives of people in the areas on both sides of the project such as causing flooding, delaying the construction of the frontage road... the districts and provinces need to coordinate smoothly, synchronously and consistently to have opinions with investors, especially investors belonging to central agencies to handle, synchronously with the construction implementation process.

Forecasting complicated weather developments in the coming time, the Provincial Party Secretary and Chairman of the Provincial People's Council requested localities to pay attention to focus on leadership and direction to effectively implement summer-autumn crop production, respond to climate change, drought-related situations;... directly affecting people's lives.