Never before has the handling of administrative procedures related to land received so much public attention as in recent times. Therefore, tens of thousands of "frozen" files have become the "focus" when brought up for questioning and discussion at a provincial People's Council meeting, in order to "resolve" the frustration and build trust among the people.
Receiving and handling administrative procedures on land at the "one-stop" department of Nong Cong district. Photo: To Phuong
The delay and irresponsibility of a number of officials and civil servants have caused tens of thousands of land-related files to be overdue, making people frustrated and indignant. Where is the public responsibility and how to handle this responsibility? is an issue of great concern to public opinion. In particular, this content has become a "hot" issue when questioning the "commander" of the natural resources and environment (TN&MT) sector at the 14th Session of the People's Council of Thanh Hoa province, term XVIII, held in July 2023.
Overdue - a daily occurrence
On December 13, 2023, Mr. Nguyen Huu Hoi (representing the co-heirs of Mr. Nguyen Huu Bien - Ms. Ngo Thi Choai), Hoang Yen commune (Hoang Hoa) went to the Branch of the Hoang Hoa District Land Registration Office to submit a registration application, granting a certificate of land use rights (GCNQSDD), house ownership rights and other assets attached to the land. According to regulations, all steps to complete this procedure only take 25 working days. However, ignoring the regulations, Mr. Hoi's application was "soaked" until July 11, 2024 (the time the reporter was working) and had not yet been resolved. Doing a simple calculation, this application was 183 days overdue - a number far from the regulation of 25 working days.
After many months of running around and not being able to wait any longer - Mr. Hoi's nephew, co-heir Nguyen Van Toan, contacted Thanh Hoa Newspaper reporters to report the incident. Immediately after that, on July 11, 2024, Thanh Hoa Newspaper reporters worked with the Hoang Hoa District Land Registration Office Branch and learned that on December 13, 2023, the District Land Registration Office Branch received Mr. Nguyen Huu Hoi's dossier. Through the appraisal and verification work, only 5 days after receiving the dossier, that is, on December 18, 2023, the branch transferred the dossier to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to advise the Hoang Hoa District People's Committee to issue a decision to recognize land use rights. However, after more than "6 months of consultation" from the specialized department, the Hoang Hoa District People's Committee still could not issue a decision according to regulations. “Although I have completed all the required documents, for some reason my uncle’s file is still being “soaked” from month to month. This is unacceptable,” said Mr. Toan indignantly.
To investigate the truth of the matter and clarify responsibilities, Thanh Hoa Newspaper reporters worked with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Hoang Hoa district. Here, both the department leader and the specialist in charge said that the delay in processing Mr. Hoi's file had both objective and subjective causes. In which, the subjective cause was that this file was made at the time of the transfer and reassignment of work of both the specialist and the leader in charge of processing the file. From this cause, many people think, is there a shirking of responsibility or a deliberate disregard for regulations to "soak" the citizen's file?
More importantly, Mr. Toan's case is not an isolated one. We have recorded the journey to register changes in land and assets attached to land of Ms. Dang Thi X. in Quang Tam Ward (Thanh Hoa City) which was equally "frustrating". According to the appointment dated June 17, 2024 of the dossier receiving and result returning department of the Thanh Hoa City Land Registration Office, Ms. X.'s dossier will be processed within 15 days from the date of receipt. Of which, on July 1, 2024, she will receive the tax notice; on July 8, 2024, she will return the result. However, by July 15, 2024, when the reporter spoke with Ms. X.'s family, Ms. X. had not yet received the tax notice. This also means that Ms. X's file has been overdue for many days compared to the regulations, while Ms. X's family has not received an "apology letter" for being late from the Thanh Hoa City Land Registration Office according to Decision 876/2017/QD-UBND of the Provincial People's Committee "On public disclosure of results of administrative procedure settlement; public apology in the settlement of administrative procedures of agencies and units in the province".
The delay and irresponsibility in handling administrative procedures in the land sector is a "worrying" reality. Just posting a status about this situation on social networking sites such as Facebook, Zalo... will have a series of comments expressing dissatisfaction from the people, such as "My family has been changing the land use purpose for several years but it has not been completed", "You guys choose and do it", "Without money it is difficult to complete", "brokers make it faster"...
The story of overdue or "missed appointments" being repeated without being resolved has made public opinion extremely indignant. In Nong Cong district, according to the report of the specialized department on the work of granting land use right certificates, house ownership rights and other assets attached to land (for the first time) to households and individuals in the district in the period of 2020-2023, in 2020, the total number of resolved records was 2,160, the number of overdue resolved records was 153 (accounting for 7.08%). In 2021, the total number of resolved records was 3,944, the number of overdue resolved records increased to 353 (accounting for 8.95%). In 2022, the total number of resolved records was 7,469, the number of overdue resolved records was 86 (accounting for 1.15%)... Similarly, in Quang Xuong district, through monitoring by the functional sector, it was also shown that in 2021 and 2022, the whole district had up to 1,606 overdue resolved records on granting land use right certificates under the jurisdiction of the District Land Registration Office Branch.
"Previously, departments and branches tried hard to be assigned more work, but now the opposite is true. When assigned work, they push it away (the less work the better), causing delays in handling administrative procedures, leading to many projects being prolonged, causing loss and waste for businesses, causing businesses to lose investment opportunities, affecting the lives of workers and the socio-economic development goals of the province" - delegate Cao Tien Doan, Chairman of the Provincial Business Association. |
The delay and overdue processing of land-related documents has been acknowledged by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment with “speaking numbers”. For example, in 2020 and 2021, the whole province had 7,063 applications for granting, re-issuing land use right certificates, registering, and adjusting land changes of households and individuals by land registration office branches that were overdue. Sadly, among the 7,063 overdue applications, there were many applications that were eligible for processing but were still not processed by officials and civil servants according to regulations.
Delays or overdues make people angry like "daily bread". This is completely reasonable when the number of delays keeps increasing. From January 1, 2022 to May 31, 2023, the whole province has more than 11,000 overdue records. Of which, the number of overdue records under the jurisdiction of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the land registration office is 10,181 records; the number of overdue records under the jurisdiction of the district-level People's Committee is 895 records. Notably, during this time, the number of first-time issued records that were returned or are awaiting supplementation accounted for 20.39%. Statistics from the Thanh Hoa Provincial Land Registration Office show that from June 1, 2023 to June 1, 2024, the whole province has more than 1,000 overdue records that have not been resolved. Perhaps this is the “existing” number on the profile tracking software, in reality this number is probably much higher?.
"Get on the forum" to solve
It is undeniable that land is a complicated field, related to land is related to a "forest of procedures". People have to go through "many doors", law enforcement officers sometimes encounter difficulties because "they get stuck in this and that". For example, the case of Mr. Nguyen Cong H., Quang Tam ward (Thanh Hoa city). In 2001, Mr. H. received a transfer of annual crop land from a family near his house with an area of over 380m2. Over the past 23 years, Mr. H. has repeatedly relied on "the authorities" but until now has not been able to have his name on the red book. Although all kinds of paperwork, land survey work of the land plot has been completed by his family and sent to the local government and functional units for consideration and resolution.
In fact, our group of reporters witnessed many cases, not only the people but also the "brokers" also reflected that the implementation of procedures related to the issuance of land use right certificates is too complicated, having to go through many stages, many steps and many functional units. Even the cadres, civil servants and public employees directly working in this field have to admit that the legal documents related to the issuance of amended and supplemented certificates over the periods are not stable, there are contents that are not suitable for the actual situation in the locality. Meanwhile, the software for tracking records sometimes and in some places does not operate smoothly; the number of land transactions of the people has increased dramatically while the human resources, equipment and machinery of the land registration office system are still limited, leading to slow processing of administrative procedures for the people...
From 2020 to June 1, 2024, the whole province had 19,063 applications for granting, re-granting land use right certificates, registering, and adjusting land changes of households and individuals carried out by land registration office branches that were overdue. Of which, in 2020 and 2021, there were 7,063 overdue applications. From January 1, 2022 to May 31, 2023, this number reached more than 11,000 applications. From June 1, 2023 to June 1, 2024, there were 1,000 applications. |
In addition to objective shortcomings, pointing out the subjective causes leading to tens of thousands of overdue records, at the 14th Session of the Provincial People's Council held in July 2023, Director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Le Sy Nghiem admitted that this situation was partly the responsibility of the officials and civil servants of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the branches of the local land registration offices. The situation of officials, civil servants and public employees not fulfilling their responsibilities, not being exemplary in performing their duties, not providing enthusiastic and timely guidance to people and businesses, allowing people to reflect and make recommendations, creating negative public opinion.
Also at this session, many delegates "dissected" and had profound comments related to the delay in granting land use right certificates. If following the session closely, it is certain that each cadre, party member and citizen will not forget the opinion of delegate Mai Xuan Binh, Head of the Provincial Ethnic Committee, who pointed out right at the session: "The psychology of fear of being wrong, fear of taking responsibility, avoidance of a part of cadres and civil servants in performing public duties" and emphasized the "3 no's" of a part of cadres: No talking, no consulting and no doing (or if doing, it is only moderate, doing and listening).
Along with the opinion of delegate Binh, many people also agreed with the opinion of delegate Cao Tien Doan, Chairman of the Provincial Business Association, who pointed out the "hidden storm in administration" when a number of cadres and civil servants showed signs of avoiding, pushing work, and not deciding on work within their authority, pushing businesses into an increasingly difficult situation.
It can be seen that at each session of the Provincial People's Council, in addition to assessing the results of socio-economic development; discussing and agreeing on the approval of reports and resolutions, the question-and-answer session is always the "focus" of interest to delegates and a large number of voters. Through many times of following the sessions of the Provincial People's Council, perhaps the 14th session of the 18th Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Council held in July 2023 was the session that received many opinions from voters in the province through the hotline when conducting the question-and-answer session with the commander of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment on the land sector. Accordingly, former Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Do Trong Hung gave direct instructions and assigned specific tasks to functional agencies and local authorities to promptly and satisfactorily resolve voters' recommendations. Former Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Do Trong Hung also "questioned" the "commander" of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment "whether there is harassment and negativity in granting land use right certificates to people?". In response to the question of the head of the People's Council of Thanh Hoa province, Director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Le Sy Nghiem admitted: "The situation of corruption and harassment in the issuance of land use right certificates exists in many stages. In which the greatest responsibility still belongs to the branches of the land registration office. Since its operation (September 1, 2020 to June 30, 2023), the Land Registration Office has received 149 petitions, including 132 petitions, 14 denunciations and 3 complaints. The content of the petitions is to request the settlement of administrative procedures for the issuance of land use right certificates; to denounce the act of not processing the dossier, causing trouble, harassment, demanding "grease" before processing the dossier...".
The issuance of land use right certificates is currently subject to many regulations and procedures. This is a factor that can easily lead to negativity and violations in the process of handling administrative procedures for people and businesses. We have witnessed many officials, civil servants and public employees lacking public ethics, deliberately taking advantage of the complexity of administrative procedures to harass, embezzle, and make things difficult, forcing people and businesses to "grease the table" and "bribe" when handling administrative procedures. As for those who "don't know what's good for them", "soaking" the documents is also "natural" and "understandable".
Phong Sac - To Phuong
Lesson 2: "The practice of bribery" and the price of "involvement".
Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/hang-chuc-nghin-ho-so-dat-dai-bi-ngam-tam-diem-chat-van-va-hoa-giai-buc-xuc-bai-1-cham-tre-va-tac-trach-225818.htm
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