National Assembly reviews works on voters’ petitions

Hanoi (VNA) – Top lawmakers have urged for fuller engagement with voters’ opinions in response to a report on voters’ proposals to the 14th National Assembly (NA)’s second session as well as the upcoming third session.

According to the report, presented at the second day of the 10th meeting of the NA Standing Committee on May 16, more than 3,300 petitions from the people have been transferred to relevant agencies and organisations as the result of 2,073 meetings between NA deputies and voters nationwide before and after the 14th NA’s second session in November last year.

Voters’ petitions addressed all aspects of social and economic life, from specific issues that directly affected their daily lives to those related to guidelines and policies of the Party and the State.

The report showed some legislative shortcomings, including the constantly adjusted 2017 law building framework and the lack of legal document consistency.

All 3,119 petitions submitted to the Government, ministries and sectors were responded to. Ninety-four legal documents were enacted immediately between the second and third session of the 14th NA to promptly resolve issues about which voters in many localities were concerned.

Along with resolving and responding to voters’ second session petitions, the ministries and sectors also reviewed and handled 69 out of 142 outstanding petitions from previous sessions, mainly in the form of amending, supplementing or promulgating of some documents.

Chairman of the NA’s Council for Ethnic Affairs Ha Ngoc Chien stressed the need to strengthen voter meeting organisation.

NA Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan suggested the parliament’s Ombudsman Committee analyse and further clarify the report’s details on solving the outstanding petitions of voters. She proposed to clarify the 133 remaining petitions.

Meanwhile, another draft report at the meeting showed that there had been more than 2,900 citizen comments and suggestions sent to the 14th NA’s third session, scheduled from May 22 to June 20.

The opinions and recommendations focus on six specific contents: production and business; resource management and environmental protection; health and food safety; education, training and vocational training; corruption and wastefulness fight and personnel work; security and social security.

Vo Trong Viet, Chairman of the NA Committee for National Defence and Security, proposed the report include other issues of public concern such as marine resources destruction, how to ensure the aquatic and marine environment, and gasoline and cigarette smuggling.

On May 17 morning, the NA Standing Committee will discuss the preparation for the NA’s upcoming third session and a draft resolution on solving credit organisations’ bad debt.-VNA