From October 1: 6 Deputy Ministers of Finance take taxis to work

The Ministry of Finance applies the fixed allowance for public vehicle use to deputy ministers and leaders with a position allowance coefficient of 1.25 (general director and equivalent) under the ministry. According to the decision of the Minister of Finance, 6 deputy ministers of this ministry will be allocated a fixed allowance for public vehicle use from 3.96 million VND to a maximum of 9.9 million VND/person/month.

Ministry of Finance Headquarters

The Minister of Finance has just signed and issued Decision No. 1997/QD-BTC regulating the fixed-cost regime for car use. Accordingly, the fixed-cost regime for public car use is applied to the positions of Deputy Minister of Finance, leadership positions with a position allowance coefficient of 1.25 (General Director and equivalent) under the Ministry of Finance.

According to this allowance, it is expected that the monthly car allowance for Deputy Ministers of the Ministry of Finance will be 44.22 million VND.

Specifically, Deputy Minister Do Hoang Anh Tuan, Deputy Minister Nguyen Huu Chi and Deputy Minister Tran Xuan Ha will have a fixed allowance of VND9.9 million/month (with the fixed mileage equivalent to 15 km/trip). Deputy Minister Vu Thi Mai and Deputy Minister Tran Van Hieu will be applied a fixed allowance of VND5.28 million for using public vehicles, equivalent to 8 km/trip. Only Deputy Minister Huynh Quang Hai will be applied the lowest fixed allowance of VND3.96 million due to the travel distance of 6 km/trip.

In An Giang, at the beginning of this year, a convoy of public vehicles also appeared, going to... a death anniversary.

The daily transportation cost from residence to workplace is determined by the fixed price (VND/km) x fixed number of kilometers (km) x 2 trips x number of working days of the month.

In which, the fixed price is determined according to the price of popular taxi companies (4-seat type) on the market; the fixed number of kilometers is the actual distance from the place of residence to the place of work; the number of trips from the place of residence to the place of work every day is 2 trips (going and returning); the number of working days of the month according to the provisions of the Labor Code (22 days).

The fixed price for car usage expenses is implemented stably every 12 months from the time the Ministry approves the fixed price for car usage expenses for the position of Deputy Minister of Finance.

The Department of Planning and Finance (Ministry of Finance) will develop a unit price for the cost of using cars to shuttle from residence to work every day for the positions of Deputy Ministers of Finance to submit to the Ministry for consideration and approval.

Since the beginning of the year, the situation of indiscriminate use of public vehicles has recurred. In Ho Chi Minh City and Soc Trang, there have been cases of dozens of public vehicles going to parties during working hours.

Together with the Office of the Ministry of Finance, the Department of Planning and Finance will determine the actual distance from the residence to the workplace of each deputy minister position implementing the contract.

General departments and equivalents shall determine and pay the fixed amount of car usage expenses together with the salary payment period for leadership positions with a position allowance coefficient of 1.25 (General Department Directors and equivalents) of the General Departments. This decision takes effect from October 1.

This is an effort to save costs for the use of public vehicles of the Ministry of Finance and will likely save a significant amount of the Ministry's budget for the use of public vehicles and set an example for the entire financial sector. A department-level official of the Ministry of Finance said: "I think that applying a fixed budget for the use of public vehicles will reduce a lot of costs, even if it is only applied to transporting leaders of the Ministry from their offices to their homes. Because, normally, arranging a car to pick up and drop off from home to the office is also very costly in terms of travel costs, gasoline, and driver service. If this is widely applied to other ministries and sectors, the level of savings will be much greater."

According to the Department of Public Asset Management, currently, the country has about 40,000 public vehicles and the cost for each public vehicle is on average 320 million VND/year. Therefore, the annual cost of purchasing and using public vehicles is quite costly and wasteful for the state budget.

Previously, the policy of allocating a fixed amount of public vehicle usage fees was applied at the National Assembly Office with a fixed amount of VND10 million/month but was not successful. Only a few people accepted the contract and then returned to using public vehicles because they thought that using public vehicles was more convenient.

National Assembly delegate Nguyen Sy Cuong (Ninh Thuan) said that the recent allocation of public vehicles was difficult to implement because the allocation level was not attractive, while using private vehicles or white-plate cars instead of public vehicles to go to Party and State agencies was difficult. "In addition, for many people, using public vehicles also solves the problem of prestige," he said.

According to Dan Tri