This morning (September 11th), the Ministry of Planning and Investment organized a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City to gather feedback from provinces and cities in the Southeast and Mekong Delta regions on the draft revised Law on Public Investment.
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| Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc spoke at the workshop to gather opinions from provinces and cities in the Southeast and Mekong Delta regions on the draft revised Law on Public Investment. |
At the workshop, Ms. Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, stated that the 2019 Public Investment Law has stipulated many new contents and groundbreaking reforms in the ideology and perspective of public investment; promoting decentralization and delegation of power, reducing administrative procedures to create proactiveness and flexibility, while enhancing the responsibility and role of leaders, ministries, sectors, and localities in managing public investment.
The implementation of the Law on Public Investment in recent times has also contributed significantly to improving the quality and efficiency of public investment capital utilization; accelerating the progress of putting investment projects into operation; many national strategic infrastructure projects, expressway projects, inter-regional projects, and coastal projects have been completed and have created clear results in achieving strategic breakthroughs.
However, after five years of implementation, the 2019 Public Investment Law has also revealed some difficulties and obstacles that need to be addressed promptly to meet the new development situation. In addition, some pilot policies and specific policies enacted by the National Assembly and currently in the implementation phase have reached a point where they are ready to be codified into law.
According to Mr. Tran Thanh Long, Deputy Director of the Department of National Economic Synthesis, Ministry of Planning and Investment, the draft revised Law on Public Investment has 29 adjusted contents, with new regulations focusing on 5 main policy groups: institutionalizing pilot and specific mechanisms and policies that have been approved by the National Assembly; continuing to promote decentralization and delegation of power; improving the quality of investment preparation, resource exploitation, and the capacity to implement public investment projects of localities and state-owned enterprises; promoting the implementation and disbursement of official development assistance (ODA) and preferential loans from foreign donors; simplifying procedures; supplementing and clarifying concepts, terminology, and regulations, ensuring the consistency and uniformity of the legal system.
The most noteworthy point in the group of contents institutionalizing specific pilot mechanisms and policies is that the revised Draft Law on Public Investment allows for the separation of compensation, support, resettlement, and land clearance into independent projects for all project groups.
While current regulations only allow the separation of independent projects when approving the investment policy for nationally important projects or Group A projects.
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| The draft revised Law on Public Investment focuses on decentralizing the authority to adjust the medium-term public investment plan. |
In the policy group promoting decentralization and delegation of power, the revised Draft Law on Public Investment focuses on decentralizing the authority to adjust medium-term and annual public investment plans using central government budget funds between ministries, central agencies, and localities from the Standing Committee of the National Assembly to the Prime Minister in cases where the total amount of medium-term and annual capital already decided by the National Assembly remains unchanged.
The draft also adjusts the scale of public investment capital for nationally important projects from VND 10,000 billion to VND 30,000 billion or more; the scale of capital for Group A, Group B, and Group C projects is increased to twice the previous levels stipulated in the 2019 Public Investment Law.
In the group focusing on simplifying procedures, the revised draft Law on Public Investment is expected to simplify the procedures for preparing medium-term and annual public investment plans; and reduce the procedures for appraising funding sources and the ability to balance capital.
At the same time, it also stipulates some specific contents to unify understanding and implementation, such as: cases of adjusting investment policies for projects; the concept of outstanding construction debt; defining the scope of public investment projects and recurrent expenditure tasks; updating the subjects using public investment capital, etc.
Commenting on the new points in the revised draft Law on Public Investment, Mr. Nguyen Truc Son, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Ben Tre province, said that the adjustments show that the Ministry of Planning and Investment has innovated its thinking in drafting the Law, prioritizing transparency in the implementation of public investment projects, which are a lever for socio-economic development.
Allowing the separation of compensation, land clearance, and resettlement into independent projects is very reasonable, resolving obstacles for localities in accelerating project implementation. However, priority should be given to separating component projects for Group A and B projects; for small-scale Group C projects, separation should be considered or not depending on the actual situation to avoid fragmenting the project.
Mr. Le Ngoc Linh, Director of the Department of Planning and Investment of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, stated that separating the land clearance component into an independent project is expected to accelerate the progress of large-scale projects. However, the separation of compensation projects into groups A, B, and C must also be clearly defined in the amended Law. Currently, the total investment of the project includes land clearance; if the land clearance component is separated, the scale of the project must be clearly defined.
He said: "In reality, many projects have a large overall scale, but the land acquisition cost accounts for the majority, while the construction cost is very small. Therefore, the draft revised Law should clearly specify how much of the land acquisition compensation cost should be separated for each project, or whether it should be applied to all projects so that localities can proactively implement it."
Acknowledging the feedback and suggestions from localities, Ms. Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc stated that the Ministry of Planning and Investment will also compile these opinions to study and propose the most feasible solution.
Source: https://baoquocte.vn/luat-dau-tu-cong-sua-doi-day-manh-phan-cap-phan-quyen-nang-cao-chat-luong-chuan-bi-dau-tu-285862.html
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