Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that up to now, the Ministry has received dossiers from 43/54 provinces subject to rearrangement, completed appraisal of 32 dossiers and submitted 3 dossiers to the National Assembly Standing Committee.
The shortcomings in the arrangement of administrative units in the 2019-2023 period, the progress of the arrangement of administrative units in the 2023-2025 period, along with difficulties and inadequacies were raised by National Assembly deputies in the question-and-answer session with Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra on the afternoon of August 21.
Completely resolve the surplus of cadres and civil servants by the end of 2025
According to delegate Ho Thi Kim Ngan (Bac Kan), the Government's report stated that after 4 years, there are still 58/706 district-level officials and civil servants; 1,405/9,694 commune-level officials and civil servants who are redundant and have not been arranged or have their policies resolved. In addition, 5/6 administrative units, accounting for 83.33% of district-level urban areas formed after the arrangement, have not had their master urban planning adjusted by competent authorities; 43/152 commune-level administrative units formed after the arrangement have not had their planning approved by competent authorities, all of which depend on the resources and budget balancing ability of the localities.
Meanwhile, most localities have not been able to balance their budgets and face difficulties in funding for implementation. Delegates asked the Minister of Home Affairs to provide fundamental solutions to remove the above difficulties and problems.
Responding to delegates, Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that the arrangement of redundant cadres after the arrangement of district and commune-level administrative units in the 2019-2021 period, up to this point, according to the synthesis of the Ministry of Home Affairs, there are 58 redundant cadres and civil servants at the district level out of a total of 706 people; and at the commune level there are 1,405/9,614 redundant people. In the recent period, the number of redundant cadres and civil servants that had to be arranged was over 18,000 people, and so far it has been resolved quite basically. According to the Resolution of the National Assembly Standing Committee, this number must be resolved by the end of 2025.
The Ministry of Home Affairs highly appreciates the efforts of many localities in recent times to arrange redundant cadres and civil servants; typical examples are Quang Ninh and Thanh Hoa. In addition, there are still some localities facing difficulties due to the large number of arrangements.
To resolve the backlog in the 2019-2021 period and prepare for the 2023-2030 period, the Government has directed very strongly, issuing many important decrees. The Ministry of Home Affairs has advised the Government to issue Decree 29/2023/ND-CP on the policy of streamlining the payroll; in which a separate amount is reserved for arranging redundant cadres and civil servants when arranging administrative units at the district and commune levels. In addition, for the commune level, there is Decree 33/2023/ND-CP regulating commune-level cadres, civil servants and non-professional workers at the commune level, in villages and residential groups, which is also a favorable condition for arranging redundant commune-level cadres and civil servants. Therefore, the remaining number is not much.
“We hope that localities will pay attention and focus on existing policies. Currently, 46/54 localities in the reorganization area have had resolutions from the People's Council to provide additional support in addition to Decree 29 of the Government, which is very good,” said Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra.
Regarding responsibility, Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that, first of all, it is the responsibility of localities to review, consider publicly, democratically, and fairly to continue applying existing policies of the Central and local governments to completely resolve the surplus of cadres and civil servants by the end of 2025.
Agreeing with the delegates' opinions on adjusting urban planning and classifying urban areas formed after the administrative unit arrangement in the 2019-2021 period, the Minister affirmed that "this is a backlog." "This is a very big task, there were some difficulties in the past period, and there was no time to adjust. Because at that time, implementing according to the Planning Law, it was necessary to develop a provincial plan, then review the urban plans, rural plans... That is why some localities were late. However, there were also localities that did very well," the Minister shared.
The Minister suggested that localities, based on existing regulations, make more efforts to complete all tasks of the previous phase and prepare for the next phase.
Difficult to complete before October
Also related to the arrangement of administrative units, citing the Government's report, in the 2023-2025 period, the whole country will arrange 49 district-level units and 1,247 commune-level administrative units of 53 localities, the merger must be completed before October 2024, however, up to now, only 3 localities have submitted to the National Assembly Standing Committee for decision and 3 localities are submitting for review, delegate Hoang Quoc Khanh (Lai Chau) asked whether the implementation of the merger of district-level and commune-level administrative units in the past has been behind schedule? What is the Minister's responsibility for this issue and what are the solutions in the coming time?
Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that in the 2023-2025 period, the number of administrative units to be reorganized is very large, but the current progress is very slow. Up to this point, the Ministry has received dossiers from 43/54 provinces subject to reorganization, completed the appraisal of 32 dossiers, and submitted 3 dossiers to the National Assembly Standing Committee. "This progress is expected to be very difficult to complete before October," said the Minister of Home Affairs.
According to her, "this responsibility is primarily the responsibility of the Ministry of Home Affairs and related ministries and branches, but at the same time it is also the responsibility of localities."
Since Resolution 35 was issued, the Government has issued a decision to establish a Steering Committee, and localities have also established steering committees. The Prime Minister also held a conference very early to implement, but in general, when implementing a very large amount of work, the requirements of Resolution 35 are stricter, ensuring compliance with provincial planning, urban planning, rural planning and other planning. When implementing this arrangement, many localities also combine the expansion of urban space at the district or commune level, or the establishment of urban administrative units.
However, the current units are still facing many difficulties due to not having developed plans to carry out planning tasks; not having completed the plans, so the documents are still stuck, basically revolving around the issue of urban planning and classification. Citing a locality that has done very well, such as Nam Dinh, expanding a large space, arranging 77 commune-level administrative units, leaving 51 units, the Minister asked the question "why can they do it?"
She believes that if localities make efforts, try hard, have high determination, and focus strongly on this, we will be able to do it. In the remaining time, the head of the Home Affairs sector hopes that localities will try hard.
The Minister of Home Affairs said that in the near future, the National Assembly Standing Committee will resolve the problems related to urban planning and classification of urban administrative units, which will partially resolve them, but localities also need to make efforts and concentrate with the Ministry of Home Affairs to complete the task.
Regarding this issue, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh informed that the Chairman of the National Assembly has given instructions, the National Assembly Standing Committee also regularly coordinates closely and has a program if the Government submits to the Standing Committee, including night meetings, day meetings, Saturdays and Sundays, ready to spend 1-2 days to work on this issue. Tomorrow afternoon, the Standing Committee has a program to process the documents of the 3 provinces that the Government has just submitted and at the same time will issue a resolution to remove some difficulties.
“The spirit of the Government and the Standing Committee is to coordinate very closely to direct localities to act urgently. We hope that delegates will support and strengthen supervision and urge localities to properly implement the National Assembly resolution, striving to basically complete it in September,” said Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh./.
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