Minister: Disbursement of public investment capital - a political task

Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) - Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung has said heads of units must consider disbursement of public investment capital a key political task and its results as a basis to evaluate task fulfillment. 

To ensure the full disbursement in accordance with the plan for 2020 and previous years, Minister Dung said it is necessary to strictly conduct the assessment of officials, cadres, concerned agencies and units in performing their tasks while strictly handling cases of bureaucracy, corruption, group interests and waste on public investment. 

Fulfilling 68.3 percent of public capital disbursement plan 

With an aim to speed up the disbursement of capital for companies and propel economic growth, the Government has directed issuing measures on urgent tasks to deal with production-trade difficulties, ensure social welfare and cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This year, the Government held three conferences on promoting public capital disbursement, established inspection groups, tackled difficulties, revised and supplemented legal regulations on investment, construction and land. 

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, 52 ministries and centrally-run agencies and 63 localities devised capital allocation plans for eligible projects as of late September, with a total value of over 464.2 trillion VND, or 97.1 percent of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister. 

From the beginning of this year to October 31, more than 321.5 trillion VND was disbursed, or 68.3 percent of the target set by the Prime Minister. 

The minister also said that thanks to the Government’s drastic directions during teleconferences, there has been positive progress in disbursement since late July. As of October 31, 13 centrally-run ministries and agencies and 21 localities recorded disbursement of over 70 percent. Meanwhile, the other 18 ministries and centrally-run agencies and six localities posted the rate of below 45 percent, including eight ministries and one locality (Dong Nai) with below 20 percent. 

Site clearance –Existing obstacle 

Minister Dung attributed slow disbursement to the fact that central budget planning is not close to realities. Specifically, many projects received more capital than their disbursement ability, not to mention site clearance and identification of land origin.

It is the largest bottleneck to public capital disbursement. Moreover, investors remain slow when it comes to choosing contractors and signing contracts, he said. 

Though stormy weather in the central region also affects construction progress, especially traffic and irrigation projects, Dung acknowledged that preparation for projects using foreign loans, official development assistance and preferential loans of foreign sponsors is not thorough enough, thus affecting the progress of the public capital disbursement. 

A major disadvantage for ODA-funded projects this year is the harmful impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic that stalled the import of equipment, machinery, and mobilisation of experts and supervisors. Several foreign-invested projects met obstacles regarding the management mechanism of sponsors. 

According to the ministry, sponsors deeply intervened in project implementation in Vietnam so that the process must meet the requirements of Vietnam and sponsors, even in spending and disbursement control. 

Given subjective and objective reasons, Minister Dung said in order to help the disbursement plan meet schedule this year, ministries, centrally-run agencies, and localities should focus on carefully reviewing the list of projects under their management. 

Specifically, competent authorities need to grasp project implementation to hasten their progress or shift capital to other works and projects with good disbursement in line with the Government’s directions. 

He also stressed that public investment capital disbursement is a crucial task to boost economic growth. Therefore, heads of agencies and units need to consider stepping up public capital disbursement a key political task and its results as a basis to evaluate task fulfillment./.