On the afternoon of November 6, continuing the 8th Session, the National Assembly discussed in the hall the Draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Planning, the Law on Investment, the Law on Investment under the public-private partnership model and the Law on Bidding.
It is necessary to develop a master plan for the administrative units of the country and each locality.
Commenting on the content related to amending and supplementing the Law on Planning, National Assembly delegate Nguyen Phuong Thuy (National Assembly Delegation of Hanoi) said that at the 3rd Session (May 2022), when the National Assembly discussed the content of thematic supervision of the implementation of policies and laws on planning since the Law on Planning came into effect, the delegate raised an issue that the delegate thought was still lacking in the provisions of the law on planning, that is, there are no regulations on the development and approval of the Master Plan of the national and local administrative units.
Because we had not yet considered amending the Planning Law at that time, in Section 2.6 of the Resolution of the 3rd Session, the National Assembly assigned the Government to study and develop a master plan for the national administrative unit and each locality (down to the commune-level administrative unit) in accordance with the Socio-Economic Development Strategy. Up to now, more than 2 years have passed, but the Government's implementation has only stopped at issuing the Plan for developing the above-mentioned Planning and according to the plan, it is expected that by the end of 2026 there will be content to report to the Government. At the same time, there is no legal document regulating this content to serve as a basis for localities to proactively conduct research and planning at their level.
According to delegate Nguyen Phuong Thuy, most of the current planning and socio-economic development plans in our country are based on the areas of specific administrative units. The fact that we do not have a national-level master plan for administrative units and that each province and centrally-run city does not have a plan for its local administrative units to guide the arrangement of development spaces, concentrate investment resources, and improve state management and social management capacity is really a problem.
Delegates wondered why in the national planning system (stipulated in Article 5 of the Planning Law) there is a plan for special administrative-economic units but there is no plan for the organization of general administrative units, which is an issue that delegates have not been able to explain. In fact, due to the lack of provisions in the Planning Law, in the process of developing provincial-level planning, localities almost ignore the part related to planning the system of administrative units in the area.
Therefore, after the National Assembly Standing Committee issued Resolution No. 35/2023 on the implementation of the arrangement of district and commune-level administrative units in the 2023-2030 period, the Prime Minister urgently issued Official Dispatch No. 616/CD-TTg dated July 4, 2023 requesting all localities to review and supplement the provincial planning with content related to the arrangement of administrative units to serve as a basis for implementing the Party and State's policy on the arrangement of district and commune-level administrative units in the 2023-2025 and 2026-2030 periods.
“Because this is a temporary solution, the content recorded in current provincial-level plans is very general and does not reflect the nature of planning, providing long-term orientation for the organization of administrative units as well as orientation for socio-economic development associated with territorial administrative units,” said delegate Nguyen Phuong Thuy.
“Slim – strong – efficient – effective – efficient”
According to delegate Nguyen Phuong Thuy, recently, through his articles and speeches, General Secretary To Lam often mentioned that the organization of the political system is still cumbersome, with many levels and focal points, and the effectiveness and efficiency of operations have not met the requirements and tasks. Therefore, the General Secretary continuously emphasized the need to continue to innovate, to arrange, to streamline, towards the requirement of "Straight - compact - strong - effective - efficient - effective - efficient".
To do this, the reasonable organization of administrative units with appropriate area and population scale, not only at the commune level but also at the provincial and district levels, is one of the basic conditions and requires research and preparation with a strategic, long-term vision, based on the characteristics and development needs of each locality, not just to implement the specific requirements and directives of the Politburo and the National Assembly Standing Committee as in the implementation of administrative unit arrangement in the past.
Regarding this, right from Resolution No. 17-NQ/TW of the 5th Central Conference of the 10th tenure (2007) on promoting administrative reform, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of state management, it has set out the urgent requirement to develop and implement a master plan for administrative units at all levels, on that basis, basically stabilizing administrative units at all 3 levels of province, district and commune. This requirement continues to be reiterated in Resolution No. 37 of the Politburo in 2018 and Resolution No. 06 of the Politburo in 2022.
Therefore, in order to institutionalize the direction of the Central Committee and the Politburo, delegate Nguyen Phuong Thuy proposed that the National Assembly and the Government pay attention to supplementing the content of developing and approving the Master Plan of the national administrative unit and the Master Plan of each province and centrally-run city into the national general planning system and clearly stipulate that this is a key content that needs to be integrated into the National Master Plan and Provincial Planning (in Clause 2, Article 22 and Clause 2, Article 27 of the Law on Planning) to have a legal basis for the Government and localities to proactively study and prepare this content in the next planning adjustments as a basis and orientation for the arrangement and allocation of development space, ensuring effective investment and exploitation, effective use of resources, organization of administrative management apparatus at all levels and directly as a basis for continuing to implement the arrangement and reorganization of the system of administrative units according to the Party's policies in the next stages. In accordance with the spirit of planning, one must be one step ahead.
Resolving the conflict between the Law on Planning and the Law on Electricity (amended)
At the discussion session, National Assembly delegate Nguyen Manh Cuong (National Assembly delegation of Quang Binh province) pointed out the relationship between the Law on General Planning and planning regulations in specialized laws, which are currently inconsistent, for example the Law on Electricity (amended) was also submitted to the National Assembly at the 8th Session.
According to delegate Nguyen Manh Cuong, the Law on General Planning stipulates that when adjusting planning according to the shortened procedures, it must ensure that the planning objectives and viewpoints are not changed. The Law on Electricity (amended) stipulates that changes in objectives and viewpoints can still be adjusted according to the shortened procedures, but the Law on General Planning does not have such cases and does not have such bases.
Or, in the Electricity Law (amended), in cases where it is necessary to ensure security and national defense, it can be adjusted according to the simplified procedures and order, but this basis is not available in the Planning Law. In this case, even if there is a case of ensuring national security and defense, it is still necessary to adjust the planning according to the general procedure and not to adjust the planning according to the simplified procedure. Or in the case of forming a project that greatly affects land use and the environment, the Electricity Law (amended) stipulates that in that case, it is adjusted according to the simplified procedures and order, but the Planning Law does not have this case, there is no basis...
"There are inconsistent provisions between these two Laws. In the future, we will not know which cases apply the provisions of the specialized Law and which cases apply the provisions of the general Law," delegate Nguyen Manh Cuong wondered.
According to the delegate, when applying the Law, we must resolve the relationship between the Planning Law (general law) and current specialized laws. The electricity sector has many characteristics that require regulations related to planning issues. At the meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee, the Minister of Planning and Investment said: "The Planning Law only plans general issues, while detailed issues related to planning in sectors and fields must be regulated by specialized Laws and applied according to the provisions of specialized Laws".
If we intend to have such a principle of law application, it is necessary to stipulate the principle of law application - adding a provision on the principle of law application in the Law on Planning. Currently, the Law on Planning does not have an Article on the principle of law application. In addition to the bases prescribed by the Law on Planning, there may be other bases that the specialized Law recognizes that those cases must also be applied according to the shortened order and procedures to ensure that there is no overlap between the Law on Planning and the Law on Electricity.
“Here, not only the Electricity Law, there are many other laws related to planning. This is a very important issue. If it is not resolved in this Planning Law, the overlap and difficulties in applying planning laws will exist forever, causing bottlenecks and difficulties in implementation,” said delegate Nguyen Manh Cuong.
Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/dai-bieu-quoc-hoi-quy-hoach-phai-di-truoc-mot-buoc.html
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