More than one quadrillion dong of treasury funds must be deposited in banks, showing ineffective use of money, and the economy has lost its growth momentum, according to National Assembly delegates.
Sharing on the sidelines of the National Assembly on the morning of May 26, Mr. Tran Van Lam, Standing Member of the Finance and Budget Committee, said that the surplus of more than 1 million billion VND is mainly in some areas such as public investment, salary reform of 200,000 billion VND, basic construction investment and some expenditure tasks transferred to avoid cutting into regular expenditures.
"More than one quadrillion VND remaining in the budget is a waste, and the delay in putting it into use causes the economy to lose momentum while we still have to borrow and pay interest on more than three quadrillion VND. This shows inefficiency in using money," said Mr. Tran Van Lam.
Mr. Tran Van Lam, Standing Member of the Finance and Budget Committee. Photo: Hoang Phong
According to delegates, the slow disbursement of public capital into the economy has objective and subjective reasons . The subjective reasons are the management capacity and responsibility of functional agencies in preparing investment capital, final settlement, handover and acceptance of projects.
"Having money but not being able to spend it is not necessarily due to policy problems, but mainly due to implementation leading to slow money flow into the economy, limiting growth and socio-economic development," Mr. Tran Van Lam commented.
Regarding objective factors, each locality has different characteristics. For example, localities with no complicated characteristics and simple compensation will be implemented very quickly. But in some localities, "every inch of land is gold", if compensation is wrong by just a millimeter, then a lawsuit will be filed, making the process more complicated and difficult. Therefore, delegates said that it is difficult to compare the complexity between Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi with some provinces such as Son La and Dien Bien.
Ho Chi Minh City is one of the localities with a low disbursement rate in the first quarter of this year, nearly 0.9%. Mr. Tran Hoang Ngan said that the public investment plan is large, but disbursement depends on the market's absorption capacity and each stage of project implementation. For example, in the first three months of the year, the city disbursed VND1,600 billion, but in April and May, the disbursement increased to VND8,800 billion.
"Disbursement depends on project implementation, especially site clearance, in which land acquisition alone usually takes 3-6 months to make a decision, then negotiate and compensate the people. Unfinished project works are a waste," Mr. Ngan acknowledged.
The way to "spend" more than 1 quadrillion VND of the budget, according to delegates, depends largely on the Government's ability to implement policies. "We need to review institutions and regulations that are stuck because we have created them ourselves and hinder ourselves, and we need to fix them. The National Assembly can issue a law to amend many laws to remove this bottleneck," Mr. Ngan suggested.
Meanwhile, Mr. Lam said that while waiting for the law to be amended, the implementation procedures from ministries and branches need to be simplified with shorter processes such as steps for preparing documents, preparing investment projects, and making payments.
At the same time, competent authorities allow piloting of special mechanisms in some localities, such as allowing designated bidding, or separating site clearance from the project to speed up implementation.
For example, piloting the separation of land clearance from the general project and piloting in Ho Chi Minh City. Or with some key transport projects, land clearance is not based on the current project, that is, clearing the entire planning area and then bidding for land use. This method needs to be piloted, done step by step, then summarized and evaluated.
"We are impatient but we must also do it step by step, strictly and effectively," noted the member of the Finance and Budget Committee.
However, he noted that money should not be "pushed out" at all costs but should be effective. "If money is given out and there is greater loss and waste, it will be even more painful. Therefore, we cannot rush into extreme solutions, instead we need to be careful to avoid loss and waste," he said.
Previously, at the discussion session in groups on May 25, National Assembly delegates raised the issue of the backlog of the national budget, more than 1 quadrillion VND as of May 2023. They said this was a "blood clot" that blocked the economy's cash flow.
Finance Minister Ho Duc Phoc acknowledged this situation and said the large budget surplus was mainly due to the bottleneck in disbursing public investment capital. Currently, this amount is deposited at the State Bank with an interest rate of 0.8% per year.
Public investment - which is considered the driving force for private investment development - is currently disbursed very low. According to the Ministry of Finance's report, the disbursement rate of public investment capital in the first 4 months reached nearly 14.7% of the annual plan. This level only reached nearly 15.7% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister and was lower than the same period in 2022 (18.48%).
According to the Law on Public Investment, new projects are allocated money, but if the project preparation stage is "stuck", it will lead to the next stages, such as capital disbursement not being implemented.
Mr. Phuc said that the law must be amended, one law can be used to amend many laws, including amending the Law on Public Investment to overcome this situation.
Source link
Comment (0)