The Government proposes to decentralize authority to the Chairmen of People's Committees at all levels to decide on investment policies for group A projects with capital scale of less than 10,000 billion VND, and groups B and C managed by localities.
Continuing the working program at the 38th Session, on the afternoon of October 9, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law on Public Investment (amended).
Local decision, local action, local responsibility
The Government's report presented by Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung shows that the content of the amendment to the Law on Public Investment has fully and comprehensively specified 5 major policy groups, deeply demonstrating the spirit of breakthrough, reform, decentralization, and delegation of power of the Party Central Committee, the Politburo, the National Assembly, and the Government according to the motto "locality decides, locality does, locality is responsible," the Central Committee, the National Assembly, and the Government play a role in creating, strengthening institutional improvement and inspection and supervision; ensuring clear people, clear work, clear responsibilities, clear results; cutting down and simplifying administrative procedures, not allowing responsibility to be passed on, avoiding creating a "request-grant" mechanism...
The draft Law consists of 7 chapters and 116 articles (amending 53 articles, adding 22 articles, and abolishing 7 articles compared to the 2019 Law on Public Investment), with main contents to specify 5 major policy groups.
These are the policy group institutionalizing pilot and specific mechanisms and policies that have been approved by the National Assembly; the policy group on continuing to promote decentralization and delegation of power; the policy group on improving the quality of investment preparation, resource exploitation, and capacity to implement public investment projects of localities and state-owned enterprises; the policy group on promoting the implementation and disbursement of ODA capital plans and preferential loans from foreign donors (foreign capital); the policy group on simplifying procedures; supplementing and clarifying concepts, terms, and regulations, ensuring the consistency and uniformity of the legal system.
The Standing Committee of the Finance and Budget Committee believes that the amendment of the law needs to be considered in general, comprehensively assessing the existing problems and limitations to overcome obstacles and difficulties in implementing public investment, in order to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of management and use of public investment capital, therefore, agreeing on the scope of the law amendment.
However, the number of articles/clauses of the law has changed a lot, the scope of amendments is large, many contents institutionalize specific mechanisms and policies that have just been piloted and implemented in a short time; requiring careful assessment of policy impacts and careful research and review to ensure that the promulgation of laws is consistent with practical requirements.
Emphasizing that amending the Law on Public Investment is very important to remove bottlenecks and difficulties, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man noted that it is necessary to adhere to the provisions of the Constitution and consider and calculate carefully.
The revised content of the Law specifies 5 major policy groups, deeply demonstrating the spirit of breakthrough, reform, decentralization, delegation of power, avoiding the mechanism of asking and giving, thoroughly implementing the direction of General Secretary To Lam: "Whatever is stuck in the direction process for socio-economic development, we will remove. The Government creates, the National Assembly supervises, strong decentralization to localities, localities do, localities inspect, localities take responsibility."
In order for the amended Law to be truly effective and efficient, ensuring feasibility, the National Assembly Chairman said that it is necessary to properly assess the root causes of existing problems and limitations in public investment in order to propose amendments that accurately resolve the problems.
He pointed out three current problems of public investment that have not been resolved for many years:
The first is slow disbursement of public investment plans.
Second is slow capital allocation plan, having capital plan but project investment procedures are not completed, or arranging capital for projects that cannot be implemented, having capital recording list but procedures are very slow and not guaranteed.
Third, it is necessary to continuously submit to competent authorities for capital allocation both medium-term and annually because project investment procedures have not been completed.
According to the National Assembly Chairman, in addition to the slow progress in compensation, resettlement, and land acquisition, there is also a serious shortage of construction materials and negative factors that need to be addressed. The main cause is investment preparation. The draft law has not yet resolved this shortcoming.
Avoid decentralization beyond implementation capabilities
Notably, in the policy group on continuing to promote decentralization and delegation of authority, the Government proposed to increase the scale of public investment capital for important national projects from 30,000 billion VND or more; for group A, group B and group C projects with a scale twice that of current regulations. Decentralize authority to the Chairman of the People's Committee at all levels to decide on investment policies for group A projects with a capital scale of less than 10,000 billion VND, group B and group C managed by localities.
Regarding this issue, Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee Le Quang Manh said that the majority of opinions in the Standing Committee of the Committee suggested reviewing, counting and evaluating the number of group A projects with total investment from 10,000 billion VND to 30,000 billion VND and over 30,000 billion VND in the recent past; assessing the impact of increasing the scale of public investment capital of important national projects from 10,000 billion VND to 30,000 billion VND; fully explaining the basis for determining and assessing the impact of the policy; carefully assessing the impact on the implementation capacity of localities; avoiding decentralization beyond the implementation capacity, causing loss and inefficiency.
The Standing Committee of the Finance and Budget Committee and the Standing Committee of the Law Committee believe that decentralizing authority to the Chairmen of People's Committees at all levels to decide on project investment policies as in the draft Law is a major change that needs to be studied and assessed for its impact thoroughly and comprehensively, placed in the context of other policies related to the issue of collective responsibility and individual responsibility.
Deciding on investment policies for projects is an important issue for localities, so the current Law on Public Investment stipulates that the People's Council decides on investment policies for projects, and the Chairman of the People's Committee at the same level decides on investment projects, which is a measure to control power. If it is stipulated that the Chairman of the People's Committee at all levels is both the person deciding on investment policies for projects and the person deciding on project investment, it does not ensure objectivity.
The National Assembly Chairman said that the criteria for classifying important national projects, group A, B, C projects according to the level of public investment capital and total investment capital are very large compared to current regulations, but the Government has not clarified the basis for determining this criterion.
It is necessary to carefully review the delegation of authority to the Chairmen of People's Committees at all levels to decide on investment policies for Group A projects with capital scale of less than 10,000 billion VND, Group B and Group C projects managed by localities, ensuring compliance with the provisions of the Law on Organization of Local Government.
In addition, many provisions in the draft law need to be further reviewed and adjusted to ensure the consistency of the law, ensure mutual inspection and supervision, and manage and use public investment capital effectively, without loss or waste, and with publicity and transparency.
Expressing his opinion of agreeing to pass it at a session, however, the National Assembly Chairman noted that from now until then, the draft Law must be carefully prepared, with sufficient convincing basis, and explanations and acceptance for the National Assembly to pass it.
Also related to this content, with concerns about changes in criteria for determining projects, Chairman of the Economic Committee Vu Hong Thanh pointed out that there was an unsynchronized increase, with important national projects increasing by 3 times, and group A, B, and C projects doubling. It is necessary to clarify the basis for this increase./.
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