Unfinished housing project for social protection beneficiaries

The Provincial Social Protection and Social Work Center (formerly the Provincial Social Protection Center) in Dang Le Commune (An Thi) has taken over the facilities of the Labor - Wage School under the Ministry of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs since 1992. Although it has received investment and repair attention, the facilities built more than 40 years ago are now outdated and seriously degraded, causing difficulties in management, care, nurturing and providing social work services for vulnerable groups. Meanwhile, the housing project for the subjects under the Project to renovate and upgrade the Hung Yen Provincial Social Protection Center has been basically completed since the end of 2023 but has not been put into use because some items are still missing, causing waste.

The project is 98% completed but not yet put into use.

The Provincial Center for Social Protection and Social Work is taking care of 90 people, including 4 orphans, 30 lonely elderly people with no place to rely on, and 56 disabled people. The disabled people are all severely disabled, such as: Cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, motor disabilities, visual impairment, muteness, deafness, mental disorders, and hyperactivity. The accommodation of these subjects is currently degraded, leaky, cramped, and hot. Mr. Le Xuan Huong, Head of the Care Management Department, said: Currently, the Center is arranging for the people being cared for to stay temporarily in rooms that were previously the dining room, warehouse, heat-proof shed in the yard, and the subject management house. In the past few rainy days, the rooms have leaked, causing electrical short circuits that are very dangerous for orphans, the elderly, and the disabled. Some equipment for the professional work of the staff as well as rehabilitation equipment and equipment for the care and nurturing of the subjects are not available. Many of the equipment are old and dilapidated.

Meanwhile, the housing project for the beneficiaries under the Project to renovate and upgrade the Hung Yen Provincial Social Protection Center has been implemented and completed 98% of the work volume. This project has a construction area of about 1,200m2, designed with 2 floors, a total floor area of 2,360m2, built on the foundation of 3 rows of old houses of the beneficiaries before. The project started in February 2023 and will be completed by the end of 2023. The Center has completed the procedures to finalize the project and send it to the Department of Construction, but so far the project has not been accepted, finalized, and handed over for use.

The sponsored subjects are temporarily housed in degraded rooms.

Learning about the difficulties and obstacles of the project, it is known that the project to renovate and upgrade the Hung Yen Provincial Social Protection Center was approved by the Provincial People's Committee for investment and construction in 2017 from the Central budget (Target Program for Developing the Social Assistance System), the implementation time 2016 - 2020. However, in 2021, the Provincial People's Committee issued a decision approving the adjustment of the investment policy, adjusting the project investment capital from the Central State budget to the Provincial State budget. The implementation period was also adjusted from 2016 - 2020 to 2021 - 2025 due to difficulties in funding, resulting in the project not being implemented.

Mr. Bui Kim Thang, Deputy Director in charge of the Center for Social Protection and Social Work, said: Up to now, the project still has some unfinished items such as the yard, door system, railing, heat-resistant roof... The reason is that the project was approved for investment in 2017, but it was not implemented until 2023, labor costs and construction material prices increased compared to the time of the first approval of the construction investment policy (2017), so there is not enough capital to complete the remaining items. Because of overcrowding, the Center temporarily uses 9 rooms as accommodation for the subjects to reduce the number of people in 1 temporary room and in the yard. The Center has also reported to the management unit about the difficulties of the project to find solutions. At the same time, it proposed a number of solutions such as the province paying attention to investing in completing the project or accepting and settling each part so that the project can be put into use, creating better conditions for management, care and nurturing of orphans, lonely elderly people without support, people with disabilities and not causing waste of the project.

Dao Doan

Source: https://baohungyen.vn/do-dang-cong-trinh-nha-o-cho-doi-tuong-bao-tro-xa-hoi-3181406.html