To attach responsibility to localities and units, public investment projects managed by the province require counterpart funds to be decided by the Provincial People's Committee and Provincial People's Council in the investment policy. In the context of a lack of diversity in budget revenue and still mainly dependent on land use fees, the "problem" of counterpart funds is quite a difficult problem, requiring localities to have many solutions to balance capital sources, in order to soon put the project into implementation and promote efficiency.
Progress is delayed due to lack of counterpart funds for site clearance.
The Project for Integrated Development of Dynamic Cities - Tinh Gia Urban Sub-project was approved by the Prime Minister in 2018 and adjusted in 2023, with a total adjusted investment of more than VND 2,314 billion; of which the World Bank (WB)'s funding capital is VND 1,199 billion, and the counterpart capital of Thanh Hoa province and Nghi Son town is VND 1,115 billion.
With 8 items, including many important construction items, such as: building 9.9km of coastal road from Ninh Hai commune to Lach Bang bridge; building 2.1km of Binh Minh road to Sao Vang; renovating 5.6km of Than canal from Mai bridge to Do Be culvert..., the project is expected to bring a "new face" to improve infrastructure, strengthen connectivity between areas in Nghi Son Economic Zone. However, according to the funding agreement signed with the WB, the loan closing date is June 30, 2025, but the site clearance work is still in disarray.
According to the investor - the Management Board of Nghi Son Economic Zone and Industrial Zones Construction Investment Project, the volume of site clearance work and the remaining construction volume of traffic items is very large (5.7km of route 1 and 1.1km of route 2). Difficulties in site clearance along with the delay in construction implementation by some contractors with reduced capacity, the project is unlikely to be completed within the time limit of the signed agreement. Many construction items are still under construction and cannot be connected to existing routes. The cumulative disbursement of the project to date has only reached VND 1,144.5 billion, reaching 49.5% of the total investment capital. Of which, the WB loan capital has just been disbursed VND 693.7 billion (reaching 57.8% of the total ODA capital). The newly disbursed counterpart capital is VND 450.8 billion (reaching 40.4% of the total counterpart capital). In 2024, the project was assigned a capital of more than 295.7 billion VND, but up to now, the investor has only disbursed more than 31.5 billion VND, reaching only 10.7% of the assigned capital plan.
It is known that for this project, Nghi Son town budget will contribute 537.8 billion VND. The Provincial People's Council has agreed on a plan for this capital source from 2 sources: land use fees from the Nguyen Binh ward residential area project; land allocation and land use fees from resettlement areas. However, the Nguyen Binh ward residential area project continues to encounter difficulties in site clearance due to the lack of sufficient basis for land allocation for resettlement and land use fees (Decision No. 16/2023/QD-UBND dated April 20, 2024 of the Provincial People's Committee on compensation, support and resettlement when the State acquires land has expired from August 1, 2024 when the Land Law No. 31/2024/QH15 and Decree No. 88/2024/ND-CP of the Government regulating compensation, support and resettlement when the State acquires land come into effect); Therefore, it is very difficult to generate counterpart funds for the project. Up to now, Nghi Son town has only collected 15 billion VND from the allocation of resettlement land and borrowed 60 billion VND from the Thanh Hoa Province Land Development Fund. The approved amount but not yet paid is 163.9 billion VND/232 households and organizations. The remaining amount compared to the demand is 462.8 billion VND.
In Bim Son town, the traffic project connecting Tran Phu street to Nam Bim Son 6 street, Bim Son town is also facing difficulties in arranging counterpart funds. With a total investment of nearly 336 billion VND, in addition to the central budget supporting 117 billion VND for construction costs; Bim Son town needs to provide an additional 219 billion VND, including a part of construction costs and site clearance costs. However, the land use rights auction in the past 2 years has not met expectations, so the town has not been able to arrange funds to complete the site clearance work. Currently, the project has only handed over about 70% of the area requiring site clearance; the implementation volume has reached about 33% of the contract value, about 20% behind the contract.
The road project from Bim Son Industrial Park to the coastal road section Nga Son - Hoang Hoa is also at risk of being late for completion in December this year. The value of the construction and installation part of the project has so far only disbursed 295/536 billion VND, reaching 55%. The reason is that the compensation and site clearance work for the section through Nga Son district is facing problems along a length of 0.728km, affecting 98 households with residential land.
According to the representative of Nga Son district, related to this project, Nga Son district has a very large amount of land acquisition work, with a route length of 16.442km, an affected area of 48.33ha, and 626 affected households. Of which, 267 households have residential land affected with an area of nearly 4.3ha; 77 households must be resettled. Along with the complicated and lengthy work of verifying the origin of residential land, the auction of land to collect land use fees this year also did not meet the plan. This is the biggest difficulty of the locality, causing the mobilization of counterpart funds for land acquisition work to not meet the requirements.
It is known that the total budget for the project's site clearance through Nga Son district is about 370.647 billion VND, an increase of more than 149 billion VND compared to the estimate in the total investment. Up to now, the source of the site clearance fund has only been arranged for more than 109 billion VND, of which the district budget has arranged more than 59.2 billion VND and borrowed from the Thanh Hoa Provincial Land Development Fund 50 billion VND, still short of the approved estimate of 93.6 billion VND and compared to the current actual demand, it is still short of more than 261.4 billion VND. Recently, the Department of Transport has adjusted the investment policy, in which the provincial capital supporting Nga Son district is 200 billion VND to complete the project site clearance.
How to solve counterpart capital resources?
Surveys in many localities in the province show that, due to the lack of diversified revenue sources, the mobilization of counterpart funds for investment projects is mostly balanced from land use tax revenue. However, when the market is unfavorable and real estate is frozen, "waiting" for this source of revenue often does not meet expectations. According to data from the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, by October 10, 2024, the revenue from land use rights auctions had only reached nearly VND 9,283 billion/VND 22,876.6 billion, reaching 40.6% of the plan, leading to difficulties in most localities in arranging counterpart funds for land clearance and site clearance for projects.
In Bim Son town, the estimated revenue from land use fees in 2024 assigned by the town People's Council is more than 397 billion VND; of which nearly 163 billion VND will be adjusted to the provincial budget, and more than 234 billion VND will be adjusted to the district and commune budgets. However, in the first 9 months of this year, the land use fee collection has only reached 201 billion VND. Along with other tasks that must be spent according to the estimate; the source of capital allocated for new investment projects is 43.4 billion VND.
The representative of the Department of Finance and Planning, People's Committee of Quang Xuong district shared that in 2024, the land use fee collection in the area did not reach the set plan due to the sluggish real estate market in the district. Many planning sites were put up for auction but there were no customers participating. Accordingly, when auctioning 16 planning sites in 13 communes, with a total of 499 land lots put up for auction, but up to now, only 151 lots (2.32ha) have won the auction, reaching 30%, with the auction winning amount for land use rights being 113.7 billion VND.
Comrade Le Minh Nghia, Director of the Department of Planning and Investment, commented: “Most of the projects using investment capital from land use fee revenue are key projects of the province or counterpart projects using foreign capital, so the investment scale and land acquisition scope are very large, requiring a lot of time to implement; at the same time, they must comply with the provisions of Vietnamese law and foreign sponsors, which can easily cause difficulties and problems during the implementation process. Along with that, fluctuations in the real estate market in recent years have affected the land use fee revenue of localities. Land Law No. 31/2024/QH15 takes effect from August 1, 2024 with many new regulations and contents compared to before. There are no guiding circulars or specific regulations of the province for implementation. This is also a reason why localities and investors are still confused in the implementation process, leading to the failure to deploy projects for timely auction.
Currently, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment is guiding and requesting districts, towns and cities to study and find solutions to speed up the progress of land use rights auctions for eligible lots and plots of land; urging auction winners to pay land use fees, ensuring budget revenue according to plan and promptly arranging land acquisition capital, promoting project progress. In fact, recently, even when other localities encountered difficulties or "struggled" when conducting auctions, there were still localities that promptly and effectively exploited this source of revenue.
Typically, in Yen Dinh district, in 2024, the district organized auctions of 10 land plots, successfully auctioning 427/603 land lots, with a revenue of nearly 542 billion VND. With this source of capital, the local budget balance is not only sufficient to cover key projects managed by the province that are being implemented, but the locality also organizes the construction of many projects in the district's public investment plan. Since the beginning of the year, Yen Dinh district has started 34 new projects, with a total investment of 422.3 billion VND. Of which, there are 6 projects in the field of transportation; 5 projects in the field of agriculture; 8 projects in the field of education; 9 projects in the field of technical infrastructure...
In Thieu Hoa district, in 2024, land use fees collected for 19 auctioned projects reached more than 720 billion VND, of which the district budget was 220 billion VND. From 2020 to now, the district has provided counterpart funds of more than 399 billion VND/534 billion VND, reaching 75% of the plan for the 2020-2025 period. In 2024 alone, this capital source will reach more than 163 billion VND.
Comrade Trinh Dinh Tung, Head of the Finance - Planning Department, Thieu Hoa District People's Committee, said: "In the past time, the locality has focused on planning in general and detailed planning of 1/500 scale of new residential areas in particular. Up to now, the locality has implemented more than 100 planning projects including: district planning, general urban planning, general planning of commune construction, detailed planning of 1/500 scale of residential areas, commercial areas, planning of 1/500 industrial clusters... "Covering" and publicizing the planning has helped the locality increase its competitiveness with other localities when calling for investors; at the same time, promoting the exploitation of land funds, especially residential land to form new residential areas, new modern and synchronous urban areas. Along with that, the locality also effectively implemented the investment in technical infrastructure of new residential areas to put them into auction for land use rights, especially in areas with high potential such as Thieu Hoa town. Investment preparation, site clearance, and construction of residential infrastructure were also carried out synchronously and quickly, and projects were soon put into land auction to generate revenue; thereby having resources to allocate for investment expenditure, especially to respond to key projects in the area.
According to the Department of Planning and Investment, in the total public investment capital plan for the local budget this year of 9,539.746 billion VND, there is nearly 7,924.981 billion VND of investment capital from land use fee revenue. As of October 16, the whole province has disbursed nearly 5,715.7 billion VND of this capital source, although higher than the average disbursement rate of the whole province, it only reached 72.1% of the plan. |
At the provincial conference on promoting the disbursement of public investment capital held on October 30, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee assigned the Department of Construction to advise and report to the Provincial People's Committee on directing the inspection work in the construction sector; focusing on contents such as the quality of bidding documents, the quality of works, and especially the weak consulting activities. In fact, in recent times, the progress of some key projects in the province has encountered difficulties, sometimes "deadlocked", partly due to the lack of practicality in the investment project preparation of the consulting unit. Many projects when put into implementation have had their GPMB "capital increased", causing passivity and "burden" for many localities when having to "carry" a large source of counterpart capital.
The Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee also directed the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and localities to actively coordinate to complete the addition of land prices for roads and streets not yet listed in the land price list according to Decision No. 1394/QD-UBND dated April 10, 2024 of the Provincial People's Committee; adjust the land price list according to the policy approved by the Provincial People's Committee, as a legal basis for localities to fundamentally resolve a number of difficulties in allocating resettlement land and collecting land use fees; promote site clearance of land-using projects to organize auctions and biddings, creating land use tax revenue for development investment expenditures.
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Final Lesson: Accelerating to the Finish Line
Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/giai-ngan-von-dau-tu-cong-quyet-tam-giu-vi-the-top-dau-bai-3-giai-bai-toan-von-doi-ung-229616.htm
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