Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport 'criticizes' management capacity, Traffic Department responds

Regarding the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport's written comments on the assessment of the task performance capacity of the Traffic Construction Investment Project Management Board (Traffic Board), this unit has just responded in writing to the Department of Home Affairs.

Accordingly, the Traffic Committee does not agree with some of the contents reported by the Department of Transport. The Traffic Committee believes that the Department of Transport has used many inaccurate data and assessments that do not reflect the true nature of the incident, leading to many assessments and conclusions that are not objective and appropriate, especially the above assessment will easily cause the misconception that all current delays are caused by the Traffic Committee.

An Phu traffic intersection is one of the key projects that the Traffic Department is managing.

Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport proposes to establish a new Management Board

Previously, in the unit's report, the HCM City Department of Transport stated that the Transport Department is the investor of 162 projects and is performing state supervision of 8 PPP projects. Among them are 2 important national projects, 10 group A projects and group B and C projects. The management workload is very large, with the current total human resources being 239 people, which means that on average, less than 2 people manage 1 project.

The Department believes that with the current model and number of project managers, the Traffic Department still has many limitations and shortcomings. Currently, the Traffic Department has 10 project management boards managing more than 162 projects, but they do not have legal status and do not have enough authority and functions to coordinate with related agencies, units and organizations, leading to overloading the direction and management work of the department's leaders.

In addition, the shortcomings of the Transport Department are also in the project preparation stage: The project preparation consultation work is not of high quality, sometimes interrupted, reducing investment efficiency. For example, the Ho Chi Minh City - Moc Bai expressway project, up to now, it has been nearly 2 years but the project's pre-feasibility study report has not been approved.

During the project implementation phase, there are still limitations and shortcomings that affect the progress, quality of the project and investment efficiency. For example, Ring Road 3 and Ho Chi Minh City - Moc Bai Expressway are large-scale projects with complex techniques, involving many sectors and many participating entities. Investors have not yet promptly identified complex and difficult issues to proactively propose and promptly report to competent authorities for resolution.

The Department of Transport believes that the number of projects managed by the Traffic Department is very large, especially in recent years when it was assigned as the investor of two key national projects on Ring Road 3 and other key projects such as the road connecting Tran Quoc Hoan - Cong Hoa Street, the construction of An Phu Interchange, and the expansion of National Highway 50.

Not to mention, many large projects will be implemented in the near future such as Ho Chi Minh City - Moc Bai Expressway, Ring Road 2, 5 investment projects in the form of BOT on existing roads according to the special mechanism of Resolution 98.

Therefore, the Department of Transport proposed to establish an additional specialized Transport Construction Investment Project Management Board under the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee.

Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport said that the Traffic Department has 239 people but manages up to 162 projects.

Traffic Department response

Responding to the comments of the HCM City Department of Transport, the Transport Department said that although the total number of projects assigned to the Department as the investor is 162, of which 67 projects have been completed and are being finalized, 24 projects are preparing for investment, so the key work in reality is only focused on 71 projects, including 23 projects under direct construction and 48 projects that are removing difficulties and obstacles in compensation and site clearance.

Also according to the Traffic Department, if we update the actual characteristics of the projects the Department is managing, this number will be 10 people managing an ongoing project (239 people divided by 23 ongoing projects).

Regarding the Department of Transport's assessment that the Project Management Boards of the Transport Board do not have legal status and do not have sufficient authority, the Transport Board said that according to regulations, each project management board only has 1 Board of Directors and affiliated Project Management Boards. The heads of Project Management Boards under the units can still preside over and coordinate daily with the localities.

The Transport Department also asked the HCM City Department of Transport in return: "If the HCM City Department of Transport argues like that, how will the upcoming specialized Project Management Board (assuming it is established according to the proposal of the HCM City Department of Transport) overcome this shortcoming? Each affiliated Project Management Board will have its own seal and accounting to have the authority to transact with localities?"

Explaining that the Ho Chi Minh City - Moc Bai expressway project was assigned for 2 years, but the pre-feasibility study report has not been approved by the competent authority, the Transport Department said that over the past 2 years there have been many reasons for the delay in progress, not due to the unit's fault.

Specifically, it is the recalculation of the project with the scale changed from 4 limited lanes to 4 complete lanes according to the new policy of the Prime Minister; the need to complete the procedures to add 2,900 billion VND for the project from the central budget for 2 localities (unprecedented); different views between the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Planning and Investment regarding the connection or not to connect the Ho Chi Minh City - Moc Bai expressway with Ho Chi Minh road.

*The Transport Department said there were many reasons for the delay in project implementation.*

In addition, many projects are delayed, have problems with site clearance, and have poor construction contractors, which are the work of previous units. The Traffic Department only received and implemented these projects from May 2019.

"In summary, regarding the content stated in document No. 12456 dated October 16 of the Department of Transport, the Board agrees that it is necessary to continue to complete the organizational structure, increase the application of information technology in management, strengthen inspection and supervision, and speed up the progress of implementing traffic projects. However, the Board does not agree with the Department's selection of information, data, analysis, and comments for the reasons stated above," the document of the Traffic Board stated.

Regarding the proposal to establish a new Project Management Board of the HCM City Department of Transport, the Transport Board believes that in the case of the City People's Committee, the Department of Transport sees that in the coming years there needs to be an additional specialized transport project management board under the HCM City People's Committee (temporarily called the new transport project management board), the Transport Board proposes the model of the new board and the relationship with the current Transport Board as follows:

The new Transport Project Management Board will have similar functions and tasks to the current Transport Board, and will have additional functions and tasks of managing transport projects implemented under the PPP method and pilot projects with breakthrough mechanisms in the spirit of Resolution 98.

The new Traffic Management Board will prepare for investment, implement investment projects under the PPP method, a number of new traffic projects and receive a number of compensation projects, site clearance projects, projects of previous investors (being finalized) from the Traffic Board so that the two sides can work together to speed up the progress of resolving backlog projects.

Both the old and new boards will jointly implement key transport projects (not establishing a Key Transport Project Management Board as proposed by the HCM City Department of Transport because this model will cause an imbalance in human resources between the two boards and easily affect the psychology and motivation of staff and workers).

Luong Y

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