Need to thoroughly clear the land

Workers of Vinh Phuc Investment and Construction Company Limited construct the road connecting Group 1, 2 and Group 8, Thanh Truong Ward, Dien Bien Phu City. *Photo: Van Tam*

Specifically, there are currently 11 technical infrastructure and social infrastructure projects being urged to be implemented. Of the 11 projects mentioned above, only the Nam Rom River Basin Multi-Disaster Management Project has a completion date of 2025; 7 projects have a completion date of 2024; 3 projects must be completed in 2023. However, by early November, only the Thanh Binh Bridge Construction Project has ensured progress, having been technically opened to traffic on the morning of November 1. The remaining projects are all behind schedule or very behind schedule compared to the set plan.

With the project of Road connecting key economic areas in the dynamic economic region along Highway 279 and Highway 12 (Dynamic Road), with a total investment of 1,300 billion VND, the implementation period is from 2021 to 2024, but by the end of October 20, 2023, the total value of construction packages has only reached 28%. The difficulty is that the land has not been cleared and handed over.

Also in the same situation of slow progress, the project to build technical infrastructure, traffic in the inner city of the Provincial Administrative and Political Center, with a total investment of 200 billion VND, was assigned to be implemented in 2022 and 2023, but up to now, the project has not yet implemented any work in the field. Currently, the investor has signed a contract to implement 1 bidding package, opened a bidding package for 1 construction package, and is selecting contractors for the remaining packages. By 2023, the project has not been allocated capital, causing difficulties for the investor in the implementation process.

Or the Project to build a working headquarters combined with a radio and television program production center in Dien Bien province, with implementation time from 2021 to 2024. The project must recover, compensate, and support resettlement of land of 12 affected households and 1 organization in Noong Bua ward. Recently, Dien Bien Phu City has been making efforts to implement compensation and site clearance plans, but in general, it is still slow. It has been more than 6 months since the construction contract was signed with the contractor, but there is still no construction site, affecting the completion time and disbursement and payment of capital that has been assigned until 2023.

Regarding the difficulties in implementing the project, representatives of the leaders of the Project Management Boards and investors said that the most difficult part is still the site clearance. Lacking “clean land” and “clear land”, contractors have not been able to bring in construction machinery at the same time.

Specifically, the Project of Building a working headquarters combined with a radio and television program production center in Dien Bien province, the problem that arose was having to adjust and supplement the ownership records and request the Provincial People's Committee to supplement the unit price of production forest land to have a legal basis to develop a compensation plan and support for families according to the request of the Dien Bien Phu City Land Management Center.

The reason for the delay in land acquisition and clearance is that the State's land policy is not consistent; the origin of the land is complicated, making it difficult to calculate and apply compensation prices to the people. In addition, a number of officials work in a haphazard manner and lack creativity; they are implementing many projects at the same time, so there is a shortage of workers; it is not excluded that some officials are afraid of making mistakes and being responsible. The coordination between related units is not tight and consistent; there is still a situation of pushing responsibility to each other... The periodic reporting of weekly tasks is not serious. Specifically, in week 3 of October (from October 21 to 27, 2023), 3/5 investor units reported on schedule according to Document 3730/UBND-TH of the Provincial People's Committee; 2/5 units did not report.

To remove this bottleneck, investors, investor representatives, local authorities and contractors need to proactively coordinate to do a good job of compensation for site clearance, from the stages of propaganda, measurement, counting, applying compensation rates... ensuring strictness, science, transparency, creating high consensus among the people.

Along with that, immediately correct the awareness and responsibility of the staff and civil servants of the departments and offices assigned to implement the project; at the same time, mobilize the entire political system to participate in propaganda and mobilize people to support the implementation of the projects for the goal of building Dien Bien province to be more and more spacious and modern.

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