The An Duong-Thanh Nien overpass in Tay Ho district, one of eight major traffic projects aimed to ease congestion in Hanoi (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) - Problems remain in the implementation of Hanoi’smiddle-term public investment plan for the 2016-2020 period, Vice Chairwoman ofthe municipal People’s Council Phung Thi Hong Ha said.
Speakingat a meeting on public investment on August 31, Ha said that public investmentprojects helped address issues of transport, infrastructure, environment andimprove living conditions in the city.
However,slow disbursement for public investment projects reduced the efficiency of theState’s capital and land use.
Notably,only nine out of 55 key public investment projects in the city have beencompleted since 2016.
Thisyear, the city earmarked about 28 trillion VND (1.2 billion USD) for 581projects, Ha said, calling for drastic measures to solve problems and ensurethat all funds would be disbursed by the end of the year.
ViceChairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Hong Son said that from 2016 to2019, the city approved a total public investment of over 107.3 trillion VND (4.6billion USD), of which, the city earmarked more than 79 billion VND forprojects.
Asmuch as 67.49 billion VND (2.9 billion USD), or 85.3 percent of the arrangedfunds, were disbursed from 2016 to the end of January 2020.
Withthe disbursed funding, 396 projects were completed.
Inthe first seven months of this year, 50 out of 155 city-level basicconstruction projects were completed, while another 222 projects are ongoing.
Bythe end of July this year, the city disbursed over 14.6 trillion VND (630.5million USD), accounting for nearly 33 percent of planned funding, Son said.
Sonsaid that official development assistance (ODA) projects were being implementedand disbursed slowly because from 2017, the ODA funding was allocated in linewith the State’s yearly plan, not in line with the speed of projects thatreceived the ODA.
Moreover,the ODA funding was from donors and they have to be consulted on thedisbursement before selecting bidders.
Difficultiesin developing relocation housing hindered land clearance activities, resultingin delayed projects.
NguyenCao Minh, Director of the Management Board of Urban Railway Projects, said thatit put aside 5.3 trillion VND (229 million USD) for railway projects in 2019and 2020.
Untilnow, just 43 percent of investment for Urban Railway Line No. 3 Nhon – HanoiRailway Station was disbursed because of COVID-19, which delayed the import ofequipment from Europe.
TheLine No3 project will have 97 percent of funding disbursed by the end of thisyear, Minh said.
However,for the Urban Railway Line No. 2 Nam Thang Long – Tran Hung Dao, its fundingwould not be disbursed this year because changes in the project must besubmitted and approved by the National Assembly in its meeting in October 2020.
NguyenVan Hung, Director of the city’s Investment Management Board for Water Supply,Drainage and Environment Works, said that the board was allocated 1.3 trillionVND this year but until now, just 42.3 percent of the funding was disbursed.
“Personnelcapacity and investors are key factors affecting the speed of disbursement, butof 186 staff on the board, many fail to meet the job requirements,” Hung said.
Forthe Yen Xa waste water treatment project, just 40 percent of total investmentwas disbursed because it had to open bidding twice with the first biddingresults removed and the second bidding results helping save over 900 billionVND.
Chairwomanof the Hanoi People’s Council Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc said that the city’s publicinvestment during 2016-2020 was very important to the development of the cityand the country as well, because funding for the city’s public investmentaccounted for ten percent of the country’s public investment fund.
Atthis time, public investment would help boost economic growth, support enterprisesand create more jobs./.
VNA
