“It took me more than a year to register the garden land that my parents left me,” this is the real story of former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat, shared at the scientific workshop on decentralization and delegation in the revolution on streamlining the organizational apparatus organized by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Vietnam Association of Administrative Science recently.
Many stories of difficulties in state management and shortcomings in decentralization and delegation of power show that it is necessary to promote the mechanism of decentralization and delegation of power, along with controlling power. Good decentralization and delegation of power help streamline the payroll and organization.
One cow 3 sets of management
Analyzing the issue of decentralization between the state and the market, according to former Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, former Deputy Head of the Central Economic Committee Cao Duc Phat, there are places where the state acts instead of the market, which is inefficient and corrupt. Telling the story of registering the garden land that his parents left him, which took more than a year, Mr. Phat said that according to the civil law, land tax has assigned each person a piece of land. If they want to exchange with each other, they have to ask for permission. After the exchange, when the land is assigned, they have to do the name change procedure, "many types of procedures, creating their own problems".
Referring to the decentralization within each level, between the Government and the ministries, explaining why “ministers keep bringing everything to the Prime Minister”, Mr. Cao Duc Phat said that because the minister signs a decision on a certain strategy that does not go hand in hand with money, policies and human resources. “The Minister of Agriculture signs without having money to do it, so it must be brought to the Prime Minister for signature before the responsibility is assigned to the ministries. The Ministry of Finance takes care of the money, the Ministry of Planning must ensure resources… for it to be effective”.
He cited the reality when he was the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, when an epidemic broke out, vaccines were needed to contain it. “When the epidemic spread, the Minister of Agriculture was responsible, but the vaccines were in the national reserve fund managed by the Ministry of Finance. I had to go through many procedures to request the vaccine, and 2-3 weeks later, when I returned, the epidemic had spread widely.”
Besides, the hierarchy is also unclear, between the ministries overlapping each other, 1 dairy cow is managed by 3 ministries. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development manages the cow, the Ministry of Industry and Trade manages processing and price, the Ministry of Health manages food (cow's milk) but in the end there are still problems.
Decentralization within each branch of power
Discussing the issue of pushing work to the Prime Minister, former Chairman of the National Assembly's Law Committee Nguyen Van Thuan said that for a long time we have been discussing horizontal and vertical decentralization, but have not discussed the internal decentralization of these powers. Currently, almost all of the Government's work is pushed to the Prime Minister, "policy making is just pushing work to the Prime Minister, while the Minister is the one who manages the industry and field".
According to him, when the 1992 Constitution was made, the Law on Government Organization defined 9 contents that the Government had to discuss and decide collectively by majority, the rest was the right of the Minister. The Constitution stipulates that the Minister issues documents and manages by sector and field and has practical value. But now there is a situation where if there is no joint circular, the "soldiers" of other ministries do not implement it. Officials only obey the orders of their leaders, not the orders of other ministers, while the Constitution affirms that the Minister is the one who manages the sector and field.
“Now, when it comes to local government management, the approval of the Chairman is still required by the Prime Minister. What needs to be done? Can the Minister of Home Affairs do it?”, Mr. Thuan asked.
According to the former Chairman of the National Assembly's Law Committee, within the Government, there is no decentralization, there is a situation where the provincial chairmen and secretaries do not ask the minister but ask the Prime Minister directly. "The minister must report to the Prime Minister on how many days off for Tet, the Minister of Education must report to the Prime Minister on which subjects to take exams, and the Prime Minister must report to the Prime Minister on any summer vacation. So what does the minister do?" he said.
From the above analysis, Mr. Nguyen Van Thuan believes that, besides horizontal decentralization (legislative, executive, judicial), vertical decentralization (central and local government), within the government, there must also be clear decentralization, decentralization within each branch of power.
Even in the legislature, there is also separation of powers. For example, in Korea, if the Law Committee does not approve of a law being submitted to the National Assembly, it cannot be discussed. However, to avoid abuse of power by the Law Committee, the President of the National Assembly alone has the right to reject the opinion of this Committee.
Control of power
Lenin once said: Give me a strong organization, and I will move all of Russia. This shows the importance of organizational work, including both human and organizational issues.
According to former Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Phung Quoc Hien, in the organization of the apparatus, decentralization and delegation of power are very important, if not the core issue. Decentralization is not horizontal division but vertical division. Decentralization is always associated with delegation of power. If decentralization and delegation of power are done well, it will help streamline the organization of the apparatus.
Considering that there are many ways of decentralization: decentralization in management, administration, administrative decentralization..., according to him, from the central level to the grassroots level there are many intermediate levels, the important thing is to discuss which level can be eliminated? Recognizing that some of the Central's orientations are very popular, such as eliminating the general department, he cited "I was born in the tax industry, initially tax was only in the Department of Finance (department level), small scale". He also asked the question: "What is the story of the General Department of Taxation now?".
Emphasizing the most important thing now is decentralization, the former Vice Chairman of the National Assembly pointed out the important rights: The right to issue policies; the right to organize personnel; the right to finance and budget; the issue of organization and management must also be decentralized. Economic decentralization is the most important, in which financial decentralization is the core. Strengthening decentralization is associated with responsibility, the higher the power, the greater the responsibility. Along with that, it is necessary to control power, control from top to bottom, control horizontally, and even control from bottom to top.
Regarding the issue of determining the model of local government to be able to self-govern, according to Mr. Phung Quoc Hien, a new relationship should be formed. The government has the Central Government and the local government. The management role of the locality must be clarified; what should the Central Government hold, what should the locality hold. For example, regarding the budget, he once proposed that the National Assembly only decide on the Central budget (currently the National Assembly decides on the entire budget system).
Or about taxes, the Constitution stipulates that the National Assembly decides on tax issues. “I think the Central Government should only decide on some taxes, for example, VAT, special consumption tax, corporate income tax, personal income tax... Some taxes should be assigned to localities such as resource tax, environmental protection tax,” he said.
The former Vice Chairman of the National Assembly also said that in order to decentralize and delegate power, the Constitution must be amended. We follow the principle of collective leadership and individual responsibility. The story of how to be in charge or how to lead collectively must be clearly defined. According to him, collective leadership is only a part of the political system, the rest is the "chief" mechanism.
Presenting the viewpoint of dividing into 3 groups, former Chairman of the Law Committee Nguyen Van Thuan proposed that the central government must strictly manage national defense, diplomacy, security, land, resources, environment, and minerals.
The second group is the group that both the central and local governments manage, such as the education sector. Previously, the central government managed universities and educational policy issues, while the local government only managed levels 1, 2, and 3. But now every province has universities, every industry has universities. Or like tax policy, it is necessary to clarify which taxes are issued by the central government and which are issued by the local government.
The third group includes the remaining areas managed by localities.
“When making specialized laws, we have to discuss each one individually. Not everything can be researched by the minister and submitted to the Prime Minister for decision. The minister has to decide,” according to Mr. Thuan.
VNA/baotintuc
Source: https://baohanam.com.vn/chinh-tri/phan-cap-phan-quyen-tot-giup-tinh-gian-bien-che-tinh-gon-to-chuc-bo-may-142046.html
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