Building political systems in fishing villages

(Baonghean) -With the financial support of the Government and the integration of funding sources and projects of Nghe An province, up to now, the settlement areas for fishing villagers along Lam River in the districts have been basically completed. However, to continue helping people in fishing villages stabilize and develop, it is necessary to enhance the role of Party committees, authorities and grassroots organizations.

A corner of Hung Long fishing village.

Located close to the Lam River, Hamlet 16 in Hung Long Commune, Hung Nguyen District is home to 67 fishing households. Standing on the left bank of the dike, looking at the houses nestled among the green corn and peanut fields, we can imagine a purely agricultural village. However, in reality, this alluvial land is not the "means" of production for the people of Hamlet 16, but they mainly work on the Lam River. Leading us to visit the village, comrade Nguyen Dinh Trong - Secretary of the Hamlet Party Cell, headed straight to the river bank, where the Hung Long sand wharf is operating.

Today, the weather is dry, so there are occasionally a few small trucks going to the wharf to carry sand. Because of that, some households exploiting sand on the river of the Transport Cooperative have a new source of income after many days of heavy rain. Nguyen Thi Hien and her husband are docking with a full sand boat, estimated at over 40 cubic meters. Each cubic meter of sand sucked from the river is imported at a price of 13,000 VND to 15,000 VND/cubic meter (this area only has black sand for plastering). The total value of the sand boat is about 500,000 VND. After deducting the cost of gasoline, Hien and her husband earn about 250,000 VND for nearly a day of work. "We have only been able to dredge one trip in the past two days, sir. Because it rained a few days ago, the sand wharf had no trucks coming to buy sand, so the cooperative did not require exploitation. At times like that, we catch shrimp and fish," Hien shared.

Hamlet 16 (Hung Long) is where fishermen early realized to build houses on the shore to work on the river with peace of mind. Therefore, over the past decades, 2/3 of the families in the hamlet have built solid houses to live. However, the profession still maintains fishing and sand and gravel mining on the river. Here, the Party cell and hamlet cadres regularly closely follow the livelihood of the people. In recent years, the Party cell and hamlet executive committee have proposed to superiors to create favorable conditions for people to borrow preferential loans to build sand and gravel mining boats. Up to now, all households in the hamlet have participated in the River Transport and Sand and Gravel Mining Cooperative. Currently, the Party cell and hamlet executive committee and the Cooperative management board are completing the procedures to apply for mining licenses so that households can work with peace of mind. The Party cell has 4 comrades, always exemplary in production, participating in building the hamlet. Currently, there is one outstanding mass person who has been considered by the Party cell and submitted to the Commune Party Committee for consideration and decision on admission. This demonstrates the trust of the fishing village masses in the grassroots Party organization.

Like hamlet 16, party cells in other fishing hamlets of Hung Nguyen district, including hamlet Hong Lam, Hung Loi commune and hamlet 28, Hung Lam commune, always promote their role in mobilizing people to go ashore, diversifying production, livestock, and exploiting construction materials, gradually escaping poverty sustainably. Currently, many families have become well-off and rich. To maintain the role of party organizations in fishing villages, Hung Nguyen District Party Committee has implemented many solutions, strengthening coordination between Party committees, authorities and organizations. During that process, party cells and organizations persistently persuaded and mobilized people in fishing villages to settle down according to the policies of the province and the Government. At the same time, timely support and encouragement policies were proposed to help people stabilize their lives and develop sustainable occupations. However, the common difficulty of party cells is that the source of party member development is low because young people go to work for hire everywhere and many policies have not been effective in practice. This is due to the fact that the current settlement of fishing villages has certain limitations. That is, there is a lack of land for production, while the output of shrimp and fish catching on the river is getting lower and lower. Most people have switched to river transport and sand and gravel mining on the river.

While in Hung Nguyen, the party cell and hamlet executive committees in fishing villages are maintained, in areas such as Nam Dan, Thanh Chuong, Do Luong, Anh Son, party members from fishing villages are absent. In Nam Loc commune, although resettlement projects for fishing villages have been implemented, 53/63 fishing households have settled ashore, but due to many reasons, the new settlement area has not yet had a decision to establish hamlets, so the factors for the formation of party cells have not been nurtured. So here, both the party cell and hamlet organization - the "unit" closest to the people in State administrative management - are "empty".

Comrade Nguyen Xuan Lanh - Secretary of the Party Committee of Nam Loc commune admitted: “Therefore, in the process of administrative management of fishing village households, there are certain difficulties. Due to the lack of households to establish villages, there is a lack of hamlet and village organization, so the implementation of policies and guidelines as well as the implementation of mass mobilization work is not synchronous; Meanwhile, fishing village households often operate on the river, and the organization of people's meetings has no one to "hold the pole" and call for... Although the commune also assigned cadres to monitor and manage, such characteristics lead to not meeting the requirements of the task. This issue requires more specific guidance from superiors so that the commune can implement political tasks at the grassroots level...".

In the same situation, in Dang Son commune, Do Luong district, households settled in fishing villages after going ashore have not yet established hamlets. Currently, nearly 80 households in this category are temporarily living in hamlets 5 and 6. However, due to the nature of river labor, the connection between fishing households and production households onshore is loose, therefore, hundreds of people in fishing households have not yet received any training to become party members. Talking about this issue, comrade Le Minh Giang - Deputy Secretary of Do Luong District Party Committee said: “For a long time, the fishing people have been separated from the community because of the characteristics of working and living on the river. Community cohesion is only in a group of a few households, not yet in the village character. When implementing the program of settling on land, they built houses but the people's livelihood and the problem of land allocation for production encountered many difficulties. Therefore, their lives are still following the old way. Meanwhile, the establishment of villages and hamlets according to the characteristics of the fishing people encountered difficulties in administrative regulations. Therefore, state management as well as the discovery and training of Party nuclei among the fishing people have not been implemented systematically…”.

The programs and projects for resettlement of fishing villages on Lam River were officially implemented in 2007, when the Prime Minister issued Official Letter No. 284/TTg-NN (dated February 28, 2007), agreeing to allow the People's Committee of Nghe An province to build fishing village settlements on Lam River, with the aim of helping fishermen stabilize their lives soon. However, due to the lack of synchronous solutions, some settlements were built slowly, and many fishing households were still "hesitant" to go ashore, further delaying the progress. As a result, the establishment of villages and hamlets has not been carried out (due to administrative procedures on the number of households not meeting regulations...), so the discovery and nurturing of positive factors for the mass movement as well as for the party organization in this "special" area is absent.

That is why the influence of party organizations and mass organizations on the fishing villages along the river is still "floating". The solution to this problem has actually been calculated by the districts such as: Reallocating land funds between regions in a reasonable way for fishing households to go ashore to produce, along with supporting methods and techniques for cultivation and animal husbandry; Local authorities build policies to support vocational training for fishing households in the direction of developing additional jobs, handicrafts, rattan and bamboo weaving for export, services, livestock and poultry farming; Coordinating training, job search... The remaining problem is to focus on solving so that fishing households after settling ashore can feel secure in developing production, improving their material and spiritual life, building a new, more progressive life. Throughout that process, the urgent issue is to build and strengthen the grassroots political system to gather the joint efforts of fishing villagers in stabilizing and developing the socio-economy for themselves and the village community.

Nguyen Nguyen