Questioning the Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung, delegate Ma Thi Thuy (Tuyen Quang delegation) said that public opinion was angry about the collection of compulsory social insurance that was not in accordance with regulations for individual business household owners and asked the minister to state his views and solutions to this problem.

Responding to delegates at the question-and-answer session before the National Assembly at the Fifth Session, on the morning of June 6, Minister Dao Ngoc Dung said that this issue had been raised in the report of the People's Volunteer Committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the results of monitoring the settlement and response to voters' petitions sent to the Fourth Session of the 6th National Assembly.

Minister of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung: It is best to encourage and adjust the transition to compulsory social insurance, ensuring that in old age there is a pension and a stable life.

Accordingly, through monitoring, it has been shown that, according to the law on social insurance, individual business household owners are not subject to compulsory social insurance, but from January 1 to December 2003, social insurance agencies in many localities have collected compulsory social insurance for these cases.

According to the Vietnam Social Insurance, as of September 9, there were 2016 individual business household owners in 4.240 localities paying compulsory social insurance. Thus, the social insurance industry has collected compulsory social insurance for a large number of owners of individual business households in most provinces and cities in the country.

Because the implementation of compulsory social insurance is not in accordance with the provisions of the law, the individual business household owners have not been counted in the time they have paid compulsory social insurance to enjoy the social insurance regime, especially in many cases they have paid social insurance for nearly 20 years.

Minister Dao Ngoc Dung said that this wrong collection took place from 2003 to 2016. The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs also discovered, corrected and basically solved. 8 inspection teams in some localities around this issue have just ended; The Ministry also coordinated with the Central Economic Commission to survey localities to review the 5-year implementation of Resolution No. 28-NQ/TW; especially soliciting comments on the project file of the Law on Social Insurance (amended), which contains the content that the social insurance agency collects compulsory social insurance for the head of business households.

“This is a content that has not been specified in the law, so it needs to be evaluated very specifically. Personally, I think that the interests of employees and business owners must be put first. Public agencies that do wrong must apologize and handle according to regulations, "Minister Dao Ngoc Dung emphasized.

The head of the Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs also outlined three ways to solve the above problem.

Firstly, it is proposed to transfer all of these households to compulsory social insurance to ensure benefits. Second, if the household business has no need to switch to compulsory social insurance, it will switch to voluntary. Third, both the employee and the agency that do not agree, must withdraw, return the money to the employee and charge interest.

"However, I emphasize again, it is necessary to put the interests of employees first, so it is best to encourage and adjust the policy to switch to compulsory social insurance, to ensure that the elderly have a pension and have a stable life," said Minister Dao Ngoc Dung.

Then, talking more about whether there is profiteering or not, Minister Dao Ngoc Dung frankly: "We have not detected any signs of profiteering, but it is wrong." 

The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs expects that when formulating a law, the group of business household heads will be subject to compulsory insurance payment. If permitted by the National Assembly, the Government will take necessary measures to ensure the interests of employees, including adding the time of premium payment if people have a need to switch to compulsory or voluntary insurance.

NGUYEN THAO