A very old reason
When working with Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh and the working group, Vice Chairman of Hanoi’s People’s Committee Ha Minh Hai said in 2022, the city would be allocated VND 51,583bn. Until August 22, VND 13,843bn has been disbursed- reaching 27.1% of the plan- lower than the national average.
Ground clearance has always been a persistent matter. Although there is not any new difficulties, the task of ground clearance has always been the most difficult one to implement in projects. It is difficult to identify land origin, land price, and budget for relocation...” Hai said.
According to Mr. Hai, the increase in raw material prices also affects the project implementation progress. There is also the practice of working in moderation to wait for instructions of adjustment and compensating prices of construction materials.
According to Director of Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment Do Anh Tuan, in 2022, the city has allocated and assigned investment capital plans with 110 projects. Out of these 110 projects, 67 projects have problems with site clearance with the capital of more than VND 3,100 billion. In which, the largest project has the capital VND 170 billion; the smallest, over VND 2 billion. There are 23 projects that have been allocated capital but have not yet started construction.
“In the future, the city will decentralize districts to approve price for site clearance to speed up this work,” said the leader of the Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment.
Nguyen Sy Thanh- Chairman of Hanoi’s People’s Committee- said the disbursement speed is a real concern. The city has formed 6 working groups lend by vice chairmen to inspect and remove obstacles.
Still in haste
By the end of April 2022, ministries, central agencies and localities had decisions in details to allocate VND 480,000 for projects eligible for disbursement in 2022- 92.6% of the total capital the Prime Minister assigned. This is the result from various efforts, including investment mechanism innovation.
The amount of unallocated capital is still large, equal to about 7.4% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister. The main reason is that a number of ministries, central and local agencies have been completing investment procedures for projects that have just been assigned by the Prime Minister as medium-term public investment plans with state budget capital of the 2021-2025 period.
The matter of starting a construction project first and complete its procedure later seems to be a persistent matter. All work halt after the ground backing ceremony.
The capital paid by the budget by the end of April reached the capital of last year year-over-year. However, many ministries, and central agencies have not made any disbursement for reasons that there are some new projects in the progress of completing procedures of bidding, evaluation and contract negotiation. Besides, there are objective factors- rising prices of construction materials- that also slow down project speed.
Besides Hanoi, in other localities, the matter is identified: implementation progress by ministries, sectors and central agencies. Responsibilities of leaders have not been paid enough attention. Professional abilities of boards of project management, contractors and supervision consultants do not meet requirements. The assisting to ground clearance has not been properly done...
The Government has form 6 inspection groups to help remove difficulties for faster disbursement in ministries, sectors and central agencies that have not had allocating plan and have had low disbursement rate- under the national average of 18.84%.
A number of solutions to promote disbursement of public investment capital have been proposed, such as requiring the heads of central and local ministries, branches, and localities to identify disbursement of public investment capital as one of the key political tasks this year. At the same time, being responsible for the disbursement results as well as the investment efficiency of the projects assigned to manage.
This year, the budget for investment plans allocated by the National Assembly is about VND 526,106 billion, excluding the capital from the socio- economic recovery package- a huge number.
It is time to identify individual responsibility and tighten public investment discipline. Slow disbursement should be checked and capital should be transferred to projects with good disbursement.
“The total public investment capital this year is very large, over VND 500,000 billion slow disbursement will directly affect to the growth rate this year and the following years,” Prime Minister said to Hanoi leaders.
Not only Hanoi, but also in localities where public investment capital is allocated. There is not much time left in 2022- only 4 months- is it possible to have 90% capital disbursed by December 31?
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