Work pressure in the economic sector at the commune level

Officials of the Economic Department of Dong Tien commune propagated to the people to agree on implementing the land acquisition and clearance project for the Investment, Construction and Business of Infrastructure of Thang Long Industrial Park, Thanh Hoa (phase 1).

Increased tasks, thin staff

The Economic Department (for communes) and the Economic - Infrastructure and Urban Department (for wards) are currently assigned up to 93 tasks, from construction, transportation, land, industry and trade, agriculture to finance - planning... With an average staff of 8 people, each civil servant is currently in charge of 7 to 10 groups of tasks, each group includes many detailed and complicated tasks; in which there are many tasks transferred from the previous departments, branches, districts, towns and cities.

Tan Dan Ward has only 7 civil servants in charge of tasks, but every week they still have to take turns supporting the one-stop department because the land administration staff of the public administrative service center is lacking. Mr. Le Dang Hai, a civil servant of the economic - infrastructure and urban department, shared: "The workload is currently overloaded. During the 90-day and night campaign to enrich and clean land data, the number of related documents and procedures has skyrocketed, every day we have to take turns receiving documents to keep up with the progress of processing administrative procedures for the people."

According to Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Dau Van Dong Ward, "Since the new government apparatus was put into operation, most civil servants have had to work on their days off, even taking work home to keep up with the schedule. Some older officials, unable to keep up with the pressure, have asked for leave. For officials with expertise, especially young officials, the commune continues to encourage them to update their knowledge and make efforts to complete the assigned work with quality and on schedule."

Especially in the land sector, Decree No. 151/2025/ND-CP decentralizes many important tasks in this field to the commune level, causing a sudden increase in workload. In Dong Tien commune, along with undertaking the volume of specialized state management work, this year the locality carried out site clearance (GPMB) of more than 100 hectares for two important projects: the Thang Long Thanh Hoa Industrial Park Infrastructure Investment and Business Project (Phase 1) and the New Residential Area Project Northwest of Provincial Road 517. Head of the Economic Department of Dong Tien commune, Le Dinh Sang, said: "The lack of staff and inappropriate expertise causes 3 land and construction officials to be overloaded; one official is currently in charge of 7 to 8 work items. At the same time as performing the GPMB task, land officials also have to handle regular state management work; especially with the high number of land disputes, there are days when the locality receives 3 to 4 applications, significantly affecting the processing time of other tasks".

In Truc Lam ward, the pressure of work in the land sector is even heavier because the locality has received up to 32 projects, including 29 transitional projects and 3 new projects, with a total area of about 500 hectares requiring site clearance. The staff of 9 people is not enough to meet the requirements of the task, the ward People's Committee had to mobilize Party Committee officials to support the inventory of the current status of land and architectural objects; at the same time, sign a contract with the staff of the Nghi Son Area Project Management Board to carry out the site clearance task.

Need to add specialized human resources

In addition to the lack of staff, the important cause leading to the overload of work in the economic sector in communes and wards comes from the lack of human resources with deep expertise in key areas such as land, construction, finance, information technology...

According to the review of the Department of Home Affairs, many communes and wards are seriously lacking in civil servants trained in the right field. In the field of construction, the whole province has only 132 civil servants specialized in construction - transportation - irrigation working in 84 communes and wards; the remaining 82 units have no properly trained staff. In the field of information technology, only 78 civil servants are trained in the right field; 103 communes and wards have not yet arranged staff in this field. More importantly, many civil servants with suitable qualifications are being arranged in the Party, Fatherland Front and mass organizations, causing the People's Committee of the commune - the place directly performing the task of state management - to seriously lack human resources in the right field.

Typically, in the field of industry and trade, which requires extensive specialized knowledge and inter-sectoral coordination, Decree No. 139/2025/ND-CP decentralizes 32/39 tasks and 22 administrative procedures to the commune level, including industrial cluster management, goods circulation, food safety, gas trading, consumer protection, hydroelectric reservoir safety, electricity inspection, etc. According to the representative of the Department of Industry and Trade, these are all areas that commune-level officials rarely participated in directly before, causing many civil servants to be confused when taking on new tasks. Although the sector has organized training, guidance and resolved problems, the volume of new tasks assigned to the grassroots level is very large, exceeding the practical experience of many civil servants who have just taken on the task.

The land sector - GPMB is also where the lack of expertise is most clearly revealed when most civil servants in this sector are former commune-level land officials and are holding many concurrent tasks. Chairman of the People's Committee of Truc Lam Ward Mai Cao Cuong acknowledged: "The 3 cadastral officers at the old commune level only performed a small step in the land acquisition process such as determining the origin and time of land use; they have never appraised compensation plans, advised on the issuance of decisions on land acquisition, construction, etc. The large workload but inappropriate expertise makes the land acquisition work in the area encounter many difficulties, depending on hired forces. This is also a problem when the authority in land compensation and acquisition belongs to the People's Committee at the commune level, but the people have not yet met the task. We are proposing to increase the number of positions at the commune level by 18, at the same time with the policy of the Central and the province in rearranging public service units, we propose to dissolve the regional project management boards, and send officers to the communes. If approved, this is also a feasible solution to solve the need for officers with appropriate expertise to implement land acquisition".

Along with the solution to increase the number of professional staff at the grassroots level, the Department of Home Affairs is currently advising the Provincial People's Committee to continue to direct localities to prioritize the arrangement of civil servants with appropriate expertise to specialized departments under the People's Committees at the commune level; at the same time, it is required to complete the review and rearrangement of the staff before November 30, to ensure that the apparatus operates in accordance with the requirements of the 2-level local government model. At the same time, it is necessary to continue to flexibly deploy solutions to mobilize, rotate or second qualified staff from higher levels to support the grassroots level, in accordance with the volume and nature of work of each commune and ward. The timely increase of "qualified - qualified" staff not only helps reduce pressure on the grassroots team, but also improves the quality of consulting and handling work - especially complex tasks in the fields of economics - land - infrastructure...

Article and photos: Minh Hang

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/ap-luc-cong-viec-trong-linh-vuc-kinh-te-o-cap-xa-269274.htm