Avoid spreading out when allocating public investment capital

Mr. Dang Thanh Tung - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Chief of the Provincial People's Committee Office chaired the discussion. Also attending were leaders of Thanh Chuong and Anh Son districts, representatives of a number of departments and branches. Photo: Thanh Duy

At the group discussion session, delegates agreed and highly appreciated the results of implementing the province's socio-economic targets in 2020 in an extremely difficult context; at the same time, exchanged and discussed a number of issues for the coming period.

Delegate Tran Dinh Toan - Deputy Head of the Legal Committee of the Provincial People's Council, from the Thanh Chuong district constituency, commented on the draft Resolution on the 2021 Public Investment Plan related to the capital recovery of dozens of projects that did not fully disburse the planned targets to allocate to other projects.

Analyzing this content, delegate Tran Dinh Toan said that in order to arrange capital, one must go through many processes and procedures. However, once the capital has been arranged, it cannot be implemented; this leads to waste of time, effort, and ineffective capital.

Delegate Tran Dinh Toan - Deputy Head of the Legal Committee of the Provincial People's Council, belonging to the Thanh Chuong district constituency, spoke at the discussion of Group 3. Photo: Thanh Duy

The Deputy Head of the Legal Committee of the Provincial People's Council requested that the Provincial People's Committee clarify the responsibilities of the relevant investors and rectify the situation to avoid a repeat. On the other hand, regarding the allocation of public investment capital in 2021, the delegate from the Thanh Chuong district constituency suggested that it is necessary to focus, "do as much as possible, do it neatly", avoiding the situation of "all fronts marching".

Regarding the allocation of public investment capital, delegate Nguyen Huu Sang - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Secretary of Anh Son District Party Committee proposed that the province decentralize more strongly to the district level for the capital that has been decentralized to the district level, so that localities can choose and allocate in each year and each period close to the local situation. Because in practice, although the district is proactive in documents, the process of reviewing and appraising projects has contents where the views between the district and the department "do not meet".

Regarding this issue, the representative of the Department of Planning and Investment participating in the discussion at Group 3 said: To speed up the disbursement of public investment capital, for projects behind schedule, in 2020, the Department advised the Provincial People's Committee 6 times to transfer public investment capital to projects under its authority; at the same time, advised the Provincial People's Committee to submit to the Provincial People's Council to adjust capital sources for projects under the People's Council's authority such as: from one sector or field to another sector or field or from one locality to another.

Regarding the 2021 Public Investment Plan, the representative of the Department of Planning and Investment also said that the total capital source in general and of Nghe An in particular decreased compared to 2020. For Nghe An, it decreased by about 5.35% including central and local budget sources.

In the context of limited capital, in 2021, the province has directed to focus on closely following the principles and criteria for capital allocation, including: focusing on arranging capital to pay off outstanding debts of basic construction works; arranging missing capital sources according to the approved capital structure for projects in the medium-term public investment plan; arranging for ODA counterpart projects and temporary capital sources of the Central Government.

Mr. Nguyen Huu Sang - Member of the Provincial Party Executive Committee, Secretary of Anh Son District Party Committee spoke at the discussion of Group 3. Photo: Thanh Duy

In addition, in the 2021 plan, the Department of Planning and Investment advised the Provincial People's Committee to submit to competent authorities a plan to allocate public investment capital in the direction of increasing the allocation rate for key projects. Specifically, public investment capital for key projects accounts for 40% of the total capital, while in previous years it only accounted for about 30%.

The capital allocation plan also ensures more concentration than in previous years, in which the central budget portion, the average capital level for a project is 21.88 billion VND and doubles compared to 2020; at the same time, completing and ending the central budget capital allocation for 20 projects, accounting for 30% of the total allocated projects.

For the local budget, the average capital allocated for a project is 9.43 billion VND, 1.4 times higher than in 2020, and completed and ended the arrangement for 104 projects, accounting for more than 67% of the total number of projects allocated under the provincial budget.

At the discussion session, delegates also mentioned a number of other issues related to training human resources to meet development requirements. Delegate Truong Van Hung - Deputy General Director of Nghe An Agricultural Materials Joint Stock Company, belonging to Thanh Chuong district constituency, suggested that along with the process of attracting investment into the province, there should be support policies to train workers to meet the needs of investors.

Regarding this issue, delegate Dang Thanh Tung - Chief of Office of the Provincial People's Committee said that the province is currently taking steps according to regulations to amend Resolution No. 26/2016 approved by the Provincial People's Council on August 4, 2016 on preferential policies and investment support in Nghe An province, including calculating vocational training support for workers serving the projects.
It is expected that this resolution will be submitted to the Provincial People's Council meeting in 2021.

Mr. Nguyen Doan Hung - representative of the Department of Planning and Investment spoke to clarify some contents related to public investment at the discussion group 3. Photo: Thanh Duy

Also at the discussion session at Group 3, delegates, as well as guests representing a number of departments, branches and localities, also discussed contents related to policies on adjusting land prices in industrial parks; supporting and strengthening the management of orange tree quality; accelerating the equitization of Nghe An Tea Company; solutions to combat traffic congestion during rush hours in Vinh City; arranging a bridge project to replace the suspension bridge over Giang River in Thanh Chuong District; fighting against all types of crimes, especially drug crimes, and at the same time surveying to create more favorable conditions for officials working at rehabilitation centers; continuing to proactively respond to the Covid-19 pandemic; implementing investment in renovating, embellishing and expanding the Can Linh Pagoda National Monument;...

Concluding the discussion, delegate Dang Thanh Tung - Chief of Office of the People's Committee assessed that the opinions were basically consistent with the contents submitted to the Provincial People's Council, and at the same time, 7 opinions expressed by the delegates will be synthesized and accepted to submit to the Provincial People's Council.