More than a month of 'running and queuing' to streamline the Government apparatus

Immediately after the Party Central Committee agreed to continue focusing on streamlining the organization and apparatus of the political system, especially after the article and instructions of General Secretary To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh directed ministries and branches to resolutely implement this policy in the spirit of "running and lining up at the same time".

On November 16, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh signed a decision to establish a Steering Committee to summarize the implementation of Resolution No. 18/2017 of the 6th Central Conference of the 12th tenure on "Some issues on continuing to innovate and reorganize the apparatus of the political system to be streamlined and operate effectively and efficiently".

The Steering Committee is headed by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh; Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh is Deputy Head; and Deputy Prime Ministers Tran Hong Ha, Le Thanh Long, Ho Duc Phoc, and Bui Thanh Son are members.

In addition, the Steering Committee also has 5 members: Minister of National Defense, Minister of Public Security, Minister of Home Affairs, Minister - Head of the Government Office, Minister of Justice.

The Ministry of Home Affairs is the standing body of the Steering Committee, assisting the Head of the Committee in developing work plans and programs; synthesizing and reporting on general activities.

Since the establishment of the Government Steering Committee, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has chaired meetings almost every week to discuss and give opinions on streamlining the Government's organizational structure. The Government Steering Committee alone has held five meetings. Five Deputy Prime Ministers have also chaired meetings to review specific restructuring plans for each ministry and sector.

As the standing body of the Steering Committee, the Ministry of Home Affairs also works day and night to complete assigned tasks. Among them, there are 3 extremely heavy tasks.

One is to prepare a report of the Government Party Committee on the results of implementing Resolution 18, along with a plan to arrange and streamline the Government's organizational apparatus.

Second, the Ministry of Home Affairs coordinates with the Government Office to preside over the development of a project to establish a Government Party Committee.

Third is to propose regimes and policies for cadres, civil servants and public employees in the organization and apparatus of the political system.

Determination must be high, action must be drastic

Right from the first meeting of the Steering Committee on November 30, the Prime Minister thoroughly grasped that the reorganization and streamlining of the Government apparatus this time has a wide scope of impact and is a complex and sensitive matter.

Therefore, it requires clear thinking, high determination, decisive action, doing each task properly, completing each task within a specific time limit; having high solidarity and unity, putting national and ethnic interests above all, first and foremost.

The Prime Minister assigned: Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh to preside with Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc to be in charge of the merger of the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance; Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha to preside over the merger of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Construction; the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment; Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son to preside over the merger of the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Ministry of Science and Technology; Deputy Prime Minister Le Thanh Long to preside over the merger of the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs; Deputy Prime Minister Ho Duc Phoc to preside over the arrangement of the State Capital Management Committee at Enterprises, Vietnam Social Security, and the National Financial Supervision Committee.

Following that, on December 4, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired a Government Conference to disseminate and deploy the summary of the implementation of Resolution No. 18.

The Prime Minister asked Ministers and heads of sectors to promote the sense of responsibility of leaders, because if leaders set good examples, subordinates will trust them and spread the spirit to all agencies.

“We must do a good job of ideological work, unify our will to act and work together. The Party has directed, the Government has agreed, the National Assembly has agreed, and the people have supported, so we only need to discuss action, not retreat,” the Prime Minister emphasized.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired the Government Conference to disseminate and deploy the summary of the implementation of Resolution No. 18.

On December 6, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh signed and issued a plan to streamline the Government's organizational structure.

To implement this plan, the Government apparatus will be streamlined from 30 to 21 focal points including: 13 ministries, 4 ministerial-level agencies and 4 agencies under the Government; reducing 5 ministries and 4 agencies under the Government.

In addition, ministries, ministerial-level agencies, and government agencies will reduce at least 15-20% of internal organizational units.

It is expected that after the reorganization, the Government will have 13 ministries and 4 ministerial-level agencies. Photo: VietNamNet

On December 12, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired the second meeting of the Steering Committee to review the draft general report on the reorganization of the Government apparatus; the draft report of the Government Party Personnel Committee on summarizing the implementation of Resolution No. 18; and the reorganization of Party organizations in ministries, branches, and agencies under the Government.

The Steering Committee also discussed the regime and policies for cadres, civil servants and public employees in the reorganization of the political system; the management of public finance, assets, and public investment projects in the reorganization of the political system; the reorganization of state-owned enterprises, etc.

The Prime Minister noted that it is necessary to fight against "lobbying", against personal interests, and eliminate the mechanism of asking for and giving in the process of perfecting, arranging, and streamlining the apparatus.

On December 14 (Saturday), Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh chaired the third meeting of the Steering Committee to discuss issues on public assets and finance after restructuring the apparatus; resources and policies for redundant cadres, civil servants, public employees and other subjects; budget for training and fostering cadres, civil servants, and public employees.

According to the preliminary report of the Ministry of Justice, it is expected that there will be about 4,922 documents affected by the organizational arrangement. Of these, there are 167 laws, 9 resolutions of the National Assembly; 10 ordinances, 2 resolutions of the National Assembly Standing Committee; 829 decrees, 271 decisions of the Prime Minister, 1 directive of the Prime Minister and 3,642 ministerial documents.

On December 17, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired the 4th meeting of the Steering Committee, continuing to give opinions to complete the report of the Government Party Committee on the implementation of Resolution 18, including the issue of naming some ministries after the merger, and the arrangement plan and organizational model of some agencies and units.

In particular, the Steering Committee spent a lot of time discussing and giving opinions on policies and regimes for cadres, civil servants, public employees, and workers in the process of streamlining the apparatus of the political system.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh noted that the principle of building regimes and policies must ensure fairness, humanity, harmony and reasonable correlation between subjects to stabilize life and ensure the rights and legitimate interests of cadres, civil servants, public employees and workers.

In addition to continuing to improve incentive policies for those who quit their jobs immediately after reassignment, it is necessary to pay attention to retaining cadres, civil servants, and public employees with capacity, qualities, health, experience, and enthusiasm, and to implement policies to attract talented people to the public sector.

In addition, the Prime Minister also requested to study a mechanism so that workers can "go in and out" to work in the state and non-state sectors with simple, flexible and convenient procedures.

On December 19, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired the 5th meeting of the Steering Committee to listen to reports and discuss and give opinions on the draft report of the Government Party Committee to the Politburo on the Project to end the activities of the Government Party Committee and establish a Government Party Committee directly under the Central Committee.

Plan to reduce 5 ministries and 3 government agencies, abolish general department level

At the conference summarizing the Home Affairs sector on December 21, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh said that this time, the number of people affected is probably the largest, about 100,000 people.

But the general policy is to boldly spend a significant amount of resources to have outstanding policies to stabilize the lives of affected cadres, civil servants and public employees.

In addition, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized the General Secretary's words of "not letting state agencies be a shelter for lazy people" and asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to reorganize the apparatus to avoid "talented people quitting and incompetent people staying".

Noting the “huge mountain of work” for the Ministry of Home Affairs related to the arrangement and streamlining of the apparatus, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized that it is not only necessary to form institutions for the new apparatus but also to build an institutional system that creates a foundation for breakthroughs, transformation, and growth in the future.

Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra reports to the Government Steering Committee on the plan to reorganize and streamline the Government apparatus. Photo: Nhat Bac

Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra also said that in 2024, the Ministry of Home Affairs will be the agency with the highest number of documents submitted to competent authorities for issuance. Over the past month, the Ministry of Home Affairs has focused on advising the Government Steering Committee on implementing the plan to reorganize and streamline the Government apparatus with an unprecedented amount of work.

After many discussions, the plan to reorganize and streamline the Government apparatus is expected to reduce from 30 focal points to 22, including 13 ministries, 4 ministerial-level agencies and 5 agencies directly under the Government. Thus, after the reorganization, it is expected that the Government will reduce 5 ministries and 3 agencies directly under the Government. In addition, the Government will also basically eliminate all general departments.

Under the strong direction of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, the Ministry of Home Affairs has worked day and night with other ministries and branches to complete plans to reorganize and streamline the apparatus.

With the spirit of "speed, only discuss, no backtracking", in more than a month, the Government has completed a huge, extremely complex and sensitive amount of work.

Regarding the proposed regime and policies for cadres, civil servants and public employees in the organizational arrangement of the political system, the Ministry of Home Affairs has completed and submitted them to the Government Party Personnel Committee to submit to the Politburo for comments. Currently, this content has been completed and submitted to the Government for promulgation before December 31 according to the Politburo's conclusion.

Regarding the project to end the activities of the Government Party Committee and establish the Government Party Committee, the Ministry of Home Affairs has also completed it to submit to the Central Steering Committee before December 31.