Large capital, low disbursement
In 2024, Quang Nam's public investment capital is quite large, especially for the three national target programs on new rural construction, sustainable poverty reduction, and socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas. However, in the past, many units and localities had very low disbursement rates, even asking for... capital repayment.
Recently, at the Conference on disbursement of public investment capital in 2024 and national target programs (NTPs), Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Le Van Dung said that disbursement of public investment capital is an important and urgent task for the development of the province. Public investment leads private investment, low disbursement rate of public investment capital will lead to the province's economy falling behind.
Low disbursement rate
Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Son - Chairman of Que Son District People's Committee said that the total public investment capital plan in the district in 2024 is more than 326.7 billion VND, of which the capital source in 2023 extended to 2024 is more than 56.2 billion VND.
Up to now, the detailed allocation for projects with a total budget of more than 259.8 billion VND, reaching 79.69%. The remaining capital plan has not been allocated because investors have not completed investment procedures, opened project codes such as police headquarters of communes, revolutionary relic monuments, solid waste treatment support works of Dong Phu town...
According to Mr. Son, as of mid-October, Que Son had only disbursed more than VND78.8 billion in public investment capital, reaching 31.29%. Of which, the 2023 budget source extended to 2024 disbursed more than VND26 billion out of a total of more than VND56.2 billion, reaching 46.5%.
“The disbursement results in the district so far have been low. Some key projects with large capital plans such as the DH21 route, Chau Son reservoir, multi-purpose stadium, centralized wastewater system of Dong Phu 1 Industrial Park, etc. still do not have the volume to disburse,” said Mr. Son.
Provincial units disburse very low rates
According to the report of the Department of Planning and Investment, in 2024, the total capital for implementing the 3 programs of new rural construction, sustainable poverty reduction, socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas of departments, branches, unions, and units under the provincial block of Quang Nam is 206 billion VND (accounting for 5.7% of the capital of the national target program of the whole province), including: investment capital of 91.2 billion VND and career capital of 114.7 billion VND. Of the total capital mentioned above, the capital plan for 2022 and 2023 is extended to 94.3 billion VND, the capital plan for 2024 is 111.3 billion VND.
Up to now, the Provincial People's Committee has allocated 195/206 billion VND in detail, reaching 95%. As of October 22, 2024, departments, branches, associations, and units under the provincial bloc have only disbursed 37.5 billion VND, reaching 18% (lower than the current provincial average of 30%).
According to the Department of Planning and Investment, the total public investment capital in 2024 is VND 8,884,283 billion, including: The capital plan for 2024 is VND 7,056,868 billion; the capital plan extended from 2023 to 2024 is VND 1,827,415 billion. Up to now, the detailed allocation of the 2024 plan for sectors and localities is VND 6,614,403 billion, reaching 94%; the remaining capital plan has not been allocated in detail is VND 442,465 billion. The capital for implementing the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction in 2024 (excluding the district budget) alone is more than VND 1,272 billion.
After 10 months, the province's public investment disbursement rate was only 46.8%, lower than the national average. Some localities and departments, branches and sectors have low disbursement rates such as: Hoi An; Que Son, Bac Tra My, Nui Thanh districts; Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, Provincial Construction Investment Project Management Board...
Mr. Nguyen Quang Thu - Director of the Department of Planning and Investment said that recently, the direction of the implementation of the 3 national target programs in many localities has been slow. In the first months of 2024, localities mainly focused on approving investment portfolios, investors completing investment procedures to consult for approval and capital allocation; many units are still slow in completing investment procedures for projects such as approving investment projects, estimates, bidding, etc., so up to now, mountainous districts have not yet allocated all assigned capital plans.
Don't "spend" all your capital
Mr. Nguyen Minh Chau - Vice Chairman of Que Son District People's Committee said that the total capital plan to implement the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction in 2024 of the locality is nearly 20.7 billion VND, of which the capital transferred from 2022 - 2023 is more than 10.6 billion VND and the capital allocated in 2024 is more than 10 billion VND.
However, in the past, Que Son could not "spend" all of the above capital and the District People's Committee sent a document requesting the competent authority of the province to return more than 9.5 billion VND, of which the central budget capital was more than 8.7 billion VND and the provincial budget capital was more than 773 million VND.
“The reason for not fully utilizing the capital of the National Target Program for Sustainable Poverty Reduction is that in 2023, Que Son localities implemented poverty reduction models of Project 2 and Sub-project 1 of Project 3 with a relatively large number of poor, near-poor, and escaped-poverty households participating. Therefore, the remaining households are no longer able to participate in the poverty reduction project model. Therefore, the capital to implement Project 2 and Sub-project 1 of Project 3 cannot be implemented and must be returned,” said Mr. Chau.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nguyen Van Nam - Chairman of Hiep Duc District People's Committee said that the total capital for implementing the National Target Program on Sustainable Poverty Reduction in 2024 of the locality is more than 8.5 billion VND. As of October 15, 2024, only 624.1 million VND has been disbursed, reaching 7.3%. Through inspection and review, it is estimated that by the end of 2024, nearly 7.3/more than 8.5 billion VND has been disbursed, reaching 85%; the capital that the district is unable to disburse by the end of this year is more than 1,277 billion VND.
Notably, for the National Target Program on socio-economic development of ethnic minority and mountainous areas, in 2024, Hiep Duc was allocated more than 43.6 billion VND from public capital. However, as of October 15, 2024, the district had only disbursed nearly 821 million VND, reaching 1.9%. Through inspection and review, it is estimated that by the end of 2024, Hiep Duc will have disbursed more than 12.5 billion VND out of a total of more than 43.6 billion VND, reaching 28.8%. Currently, the amount of capital that the district has determined that it cannot disburse by the end of 2024 is more than 31 billion VND.
Not only Que Son and Hiep Duc, it is predicted that it will not be possible to "spend" all the capital of the 3 national target programs in 2024, so recently many localities and units in the provincial block have sent reports to competent authorities asking to return capital with quite a large amount of money...
In the midst of difficult siege
Limited human resources, site clearance problems, scarcity of construction materials, overlap in implementing support mechanisms, etc. are considered the main reasons for the low disbursement rate of public investment capital, especially for the three national target programs of Quang Nam.
From the human factor…
After 5 working groups were established to inspect the disbursement progress according to Decision No. 1904 of the Provincial People's Committee, the main factors causing the low disbursement rate were identified.
A representative of the Department of Planning and Investment said that over the past two months, the province's working groups have conducted field inspections at 17 units and localities. The main reason for the low disbursement rate is still the implementation process.
Many district-level localities have assigned Standing Committee members to be in charge of some key projects, but the direction is not regular, not drastic, and not close. With the same legal basis, some units and localities that focus on direction have good disbursement rates; while other units and localities that do not focus or are not drastic in direction have low disbursement rates.
Many opinions said that the issue of concern is that the capacity of many consulting units is not guaranteed; the professional qualifications of some investors (especially at the commune level) are limited and there is a lack of strict inspection and supervision in the process of preparing and accepting project documents, leading to very slow payment settlement for projects in many localities. This has affected the investment capital disbursement plan for the first months of 2024.
Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa - Chairman of Nong Son District People's Committee said that the locality encountered difficulties in compensation for damages - site clearance. From confirming the origin of the land, measuring the land plot, determining the specific land price; problems with compensation for residential land, 5% public land, KFW6 project forest land, protective forest; some households did not agree and requested compensation for damages at a unit price too high compared to the regulations, so it was necessary to establish compulsory procedures which took a long time.
“In Nong Son, there is a shortage of technical staff for project appraisal and management, and staff working on compensation and site clearance, and some are afraid of responsibility. At the same time, the district merger has more or less affected the mindset of cadres, civil servants, and public employees,” Mr. Hoa added.
…to the difficulties and problems that arise
The representative of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs acknowledged that there are many reasons leading to the low disbursement rate of capital for the national target program on sustainable poverty reduction in 2024.
Accordingly, the capital sources for 2022-2023 will be extended to 2024 and the capital plan for 2024 will be very large. This also creates pressure on the settlement of capital allocation and allocation procedures as well as investment, implementation and disbursement procedures of departments, branches, provincial units and localities.
Mr. Nguyen Tan Van - Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment said that the current disbursement rate of public capital is too low mainly because units and localities are still confused in implementing the Bidding Law 2023. Notably, using capital over 100 million VND must be bid, hiring bidding consultants is still difficult, bidding consultancy costs are low, so it is difficult to find bidding consultants...
Many opinions say that open bidding through the national bidding network has contributed to improving the effectiveness of bidding; creating a competitive, fair, transparent environment and saving time, costs, minimizing administrative procedures, high bid reduction rate, contributing to saving the budget. However, some contractors participated in the bidding but did not clearly understand and correctly assess the current status of terrain characteristics, natural conditions, weather, transportation conditions, etc., so when winning the bid and implementing the construction, they encountered many difficulties due to the lack of appropriate preparation of materials, machinery, equipment, and human resources to organize the implementation. This led to slow construction, not ensuring the plan committed to the investor.
In addition, the documents guiding the implementation of the poverty reduction program have some contents that have not been regulated or guided, or the prescribed support levels are still low and too long, no longer suitable for reality. Some regulations on bidding are still inadequate, not suitable for the practical implementation of the program's activities and tasks.
Notably, the areas where the poverty reduction program is implemented are not favorable, the allocated capital is mainly concentrated in poor districts, highland areas, and ethnic minority areas - where the scale of poor households is large and the poverty rate is high. The number of investment projects and works is large, and most of them are implemented in mountainous areas, with planning problems, forest land... greatly affecting the implementation process in localities.
Some component projects of the poverty reduction program have too few beneficiaries, or have beneficiaries but no need for support because they have been supported by enterprises, leading to limited implementation results and low disbursement. Production development support projects in the 3 national target programs are implemented simultaneously in the same area (district, commune), leading to a shortage of breeds; capital is allocated to many agencies and implementing units, leading to a lack of consistency in the support level for animals and seedlings, especially breeds...
Flexible power supply
Flexibly transferring resources, closely monitoring each project to have timely solutions and supporting localities when needed... are urgent tasks that departments and branches are implementing to ensure disbursement meets the targets assigned by the Prime Minister.
Accelerated career unit
According to the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, the department has worked with the People's Committees of Tien Phuoc, Nam Tra My, Bac Tra My, Nam Giang and Dong Giang districts to review, determine the needs and propose the allocation and transfer of unfeasible capital sources to ensure the disbursement progress. Currently, the unallocated capital for the implementation of the national target program (MTQG) for sustainable poverty reduction in the provincial budget estimate is more than 1 billion VND.
Up to now, the Department has received documents proposing to adjust and supplement capital from the above localities and documents proposing to reduce the budget estimate from the Department of Information and Communications.
“Based on reports and proposals from units and localities, the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs synthesizes data to adjust the budget estimates and sends it to the Department of Finance to coordinate and review the overall proposal to the Provincial People's Committee to submit to the Provincial People's Council for consideration of the third adjustment plan at the 27th Session under the direction of the Provincial People's Committee,” said Director of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Truong Thi Loc.
Specifically, for the Department of Information and Communications, the total estimated central budget and provincial budget capital used in 2024 is 4.1 billion VND, including 3.7 billion VND from the central budget and more than 406 million VND from the provincial budget. The Department of Information and Communications proposed to reduce more than 3.5 billion VND to implement Sub-project 1 - Project 6. The Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs proposed to reduce 2.9 billion VND to implement Sub-project 1, Sub-project 3 - Project 4, Sub-project 2 - Project 6 and Project 7. Adjust and transfer to increase the estimated central budget and provincial budget capital to implement Project 2 with nearly 1.4 billion VND...
Mr. Nguyen Tan Van - Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment said that units need to urgently complete investment procedures, speed up disbursement progress to ensure the set plan, strive to disburse 100% of the allocated capital by the end of 2024. Units assigned to preside over projects and sub-projects under the National Target Programs must carefully study the documents of ministries and relevant agencies guiding and responding to local recommendations in implementing the program. From there, there will be solutions to promote capital disbursement, avoiding loss and waste during the implementation process.
Closely follow each project
Director of the Department of Planning and Investment Nguyen Quang Thu said that in order to disburse public investment capital in 2024 to reach over 95% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister, leaders of Party committees and authorities of units and localities need to be directly responsible for standing and periodically assessing the disbursement rate of key projects every 2 weeks, having a large capital plan to promptly handle and remove difficulties and problems arising from each specific project.
In addition, due to the shortfall in land use revenue, for projects that have been allocated capital plans for 2024 from land use revenue but the disbursement rate is low, below 40%, the remaining undisbursed capital will be recovered to balance the shortfall. For projects that are stuck with compensation and site clearance work that has been pending for a long time, the Director of the Department of Planning and Investment requested investors to actively propose solutions. If it is impossible to continue implementation, it is recommended to stop the project or reduce the scale of the project to settle the completed project part.
“Investors need to proactively check and review the disbursement capacity of each specific project with a low disbursement rate to propose to competent authorities to adjust the capital plan to projects that ensure volume. Disbursement can be made immediately upon receiving additional capital sources within each unit or propose to competent authorities to adjust the annual capital plan to transfer to units and localities in need of additional capital in the upcoming Provincial People's Council meeting,” said Mr. Nguyen Quang Thu.
Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Tran Anh Tuan - Head of the Steering Committee for National Target Programs of Quang Nam province requested the Department of Finance, based on the request of departments and branches, to urgently complete related procedural documents to advise the Provincial People's Committee to submit to the Provincial People's Council to adjust the budget for implementing the Program in the province, according to the provisions of Resolution No. 111 in the upcoming session.
“The Department of Finance advises the Provincial People's Committee to issue a document directing the correction, requiring units and localities to follow the prescribed procedures when returning the provincial budget. Do not collect funds for the provincial budget from units and localities that do not comply with the implementation procedures. The Department of Planning and Investment urgently inspects and advises the Provincial People's Committee to allocate the remaining unallocated central budget investment capital reserve in 2024 in the National Target Program on New Rural Construction. For capital sources that have been assigned to localities but are unable to complete the disbursement dossier, advise the competent authority to transfer the source…” – Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Tran Anh Tuan clearly stated.
Stick to each project, remove each obstacle
Closely following each project, supporting investors to speed up implementation progress, contributing to increasing disbursement rate is being attempted by many localities.
Stick to each project
Mr. Tran Van Man - Vice Chairman of Nam Tra My District People's Committee said that compared to the disbursement results on August 14, 1 month later, the total disbursement of capital sources under 3 national target programs (MTQG) in Nam Tra My district increased by more than 9.5 billion VND, equivalent to 3.37%. Of which, disbursed public investment capital increased by more than 6.5 billion VND and disbursed career capital increased by nearly 3 billion VND.
This locality has closely followed and supported units to overcome difficulties to speed up the implementation of projects.
“Based on the detailed allocation of public funding for the implementation of the 3 National Target Programs after the adjustment of the Provincial People's Council's budget, the District People's Committee will review and allocate 100% of the adjusted capital plan and request investors to overcome difficulties and promptly complete the dossier. At the same time, speed up the appraisal, approval and implementation. We are committed to ensuring the disbursement rate of capital sources according to the plan and direction of the Provincial People's Committee,” said Mr. Tran Van Man.
In Phuoc Son, the district identified difficulties such as slow investment preparation by some investors, some projects have not yet allocated capital, problems and prolonged site clearance time, shortage of construction materials, and fluctuating material prices. In addition, some projects did not anticipate all the problems that arose during the project implementation and design process, so they had to be adjusted and supplemented.
Chairman of Phuoc Son District People's Committee Le Quang Trung said that the locality has focused on directing investors to urgently complete procedures and documents for approval and allocate the 2024 capital plan. By September 30, 2024, Phuoc Son had allocated 100% of the capital plan.
“We check and review the disbursement of each specific project with a low disbursement rate and the inability to fully disburse the assigned capital plan for 2024, to transfer the capital plan to projects that ensure volume and are able to disburse immediately upon receiving capital,” Mr. Le Quang Trung emphasized.
Phuoc Son also proactively reviewed the list of projects in accordance with the objectives of each program and adjusted the capital source. “We are urgently reviewing and finalizing the investment projects using state budget capital that have been completed and put into use but have not been finalized, especially projects that have been delayed for more than 24 months. For investors, the District People's Committee requires them to properly implement the information and periodic reporting regime to the competent authorities to have timely and practical instructions, promptly remove difficulties and obstacles in the implementation process" - Chairman of Phuoc Son District People's Committee Le Quang Trung said.
Resolving policy issues
As a mountainous locality with the best disbursement progress in the province, Nam Giang still faces many difficulties. The rapid change of some policies has limited the capacity of civil servants at the grassroots level, making it difficult to grasp in time. In addition, due to the characteristics of the population, the work of site clearance and resettlement has not been as expected.
In particular, National Highway 14D from Ben Giang to the highland communes is severely damaged, leading to traffic diversion, circulation and transportation of construction materials not being smooth, taking a lot of time, affecting the construction progress of projects in the district...
Mr. A Viet Son - Chairman of Nam Giang District People's Committee shared that this locality will complete the disbursement plan on time. Accordingly, by the end of the third quarter of 2024, more than 70% of the investment capital and career capital plan will be disbursed, and it is expected that by the end of January 2025, 100% of the capital plan will be disbursed. To achieve this progress, Nam Giang will have to resolve some problems in sub-projects of 3 national target programs.
For Sub-project 1, Project 5 of the National Target Program on Socio-Economic Development for Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Areas to Eliminate Illiteracy, this locality requested detailed instructions on preparing payment records for a number of contents such as the regime for teachers, procedures for issuing documents, allowances, and professional training for managers, teachers, and participants in the implementation of literacy work... to implement unified archiving, records, and payment documents.
“We hope that the Provincial People's Committee and provincial departments will specify the support regime for people to participate in literacy training to encourage and motivate learners to actively participate in learning in order to achieve better literacy results. Consider expanding the tasks to the district level to effectively organize the implementation of Sub-project 2 of Project 10 of the National Target Program on socio-economic development in ethnic minority and mountainous areas on the application of information technology to support socio-economic development and ensure security and order in ethnic minority and mountainous areas. And soon issue regulations and instructions for localities to organize the payment of forest management and protection costs under Project 3 - Sub-project 1 according to the provisions of Decree 58/2024/ND-CP dated May 24, 2024 of the Government. This will help Nam Giang do its best in disbursing the funds,” Mr. Son suggested.
Content: MAI NHI - NHA PHUONG - H.DAO - V.SU - DONG YEN
Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/tang-toc-giai-ngan-3143689.html
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