Two years, nearly 200 public investment projects are late for settlement

The monitoring session took place after the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City directly supervised 18 units and surveyed 20 projects. Photo: HOANG HUNG

On the afternoon of June 15, the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City supervised the implementation of public investment in the 6-2021 period for the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City. Comrade Nguyen Thi Le, Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee, Chairman of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City is the head of the supervisory delegation.

Nearly 200 projects violated the settlement time

Vice Chairman of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City Nguyen Van Dung said that, implementing the supervision program of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City, in the past three months, the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City has supervised at 18 units, departments and branches of districts, project management boards, governing agencies, project investors and conducted actual surveys of 20 public investment projects. Thereby, some difficulties, limitations and recommendations are noted.

Through the actual survey of 20 public investment projects, the head of the Economic - Budget Department of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City, Le Truong Hai Hieu, said that one of the difficulties is the payment and settlement. Many projects completed in the medium term so far are still making payments, such as the irrigation project on the right bank of the Saigon River (South of Tra canal) and the irrigation project on the right bank along the Saigon River in Cu Chi district from Provincial Road 8 to Tra canal (North of Tra canal).

Meanwhile, Representative Nguyen Van Dat, deputy head of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council's Legal Department, after expressing concern with 111 projects at risk of not being completed in the 2021-2025 period, also raised concerns about the final settlement of completed projects.

Representative Nguyen Van Dat cited the report of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City about the very low settlement rate, in 2021 there were 2.208 projects with a value of 121.000 billion VND, but only 923 projects were settled, reaching 41,8%; In 2022, it will only reach 59,63%.

Representative Nguyen Van Dat asked questions at the monitoring session. Photo: HOANG HUNG

NE analyzed, through the report, there were about 200 projects violating the settlement time. This puts the responsibility of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City in the direction of the department and the investor. Because, late settlement leads to outstanding debt in capital construction, slow disbursement progress of public investment, slow exploitation of assets formed after investment.

“While this work is very important, why is it slow? How are the units dealing with these settlement violations?", asked Representative Nguyen Van Dat.

On behalf of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City reporting, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment Pham Trung Kien explained that a number of projects have been completed and put into use, but there are still problems with compensation for site clearance (people have not agreed with the compensation price), so the investor has not been able to prepare project settlement documents.

In addition, during the year, the number of completed projects increased a lot, and there was a situation in the same time period, the number of completed projects submitted to the verification agency and sent to the verifying agency was high, but due to the limited number of officers and employees in charge of verifying the final settlement, the verification of the settlement was delayed.

Besides being a subjective reason, some investors have not focused on finalization of completed projects, so the number of dossiers of late finalization is still high.

Deputy Director of Department of Planning and Investment Pham Trung Kien reported to the monitoring team. Photo: HOANG HUNG

Poor coordination, slow ground clearance

Previously, reporting to the supervisory team, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment Pham Trung Kien said that in the period of 2021-2025, the central budget allocated to Ho Chi Minh City is more than 33.000 billion VND, of which more than 32.100 billion VND has been allocated. The city's budget capital is more than 142.500 billion VND, detailed allocation of nearly 140.000 billion VND.

In the past two years, the disbursement has not been as expected, mainly due to the impact of the epidemic in 2021 and impacts from international conflicts and general economic difficulties of the world and the country. In particular, problems in compensation and site clearance are also a big cause.

Through supervision and professional practice, Representative Tran Van Bay, Deputy Director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said that there are two emerging problems in site clearance. It is a valuation consulting unit, currently the number of businesses with the valuation consulting function is very large, but the reality is that it is fully capable, qualified and has actual valuation activities. There is a project rented 20 times without any units participating, very deadlocked.

Representative Tran Van Bay, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment. Photo: HOANG HUNG

According to him, the department should advise the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City to study and propose a mechanism to establish state-owned price appraisal consulting units.

“Currently in the notary sector, the private and public sectors compete fairly with each other. In judgment enforcement, there is a private bailiff. As for price appraisal consulting, this field should also have the participation of the state sector, "said Representative Tran Van Bay.

The second issue, according to Representative Tran Van Bay, is the organizational structure and staffing of the compensation and site clearance committees of the districts. Many localities established this Committee with a strong force, but after that, the number of projects decreased, the human resources were also dispersed. Many places also do not have money to pay salaries to members of the Board, because it is an autonomous unit, receiving 2% of the compensation budget, so without a project, there is no salary. While this is a difficult task, it takes practical experience to be able to do it.

The Delta believes that this consolidation will be very necessary when coming here, Ho Chi Minh City will carry out major projects such as renovating Xuyen Tam canal, building highways...

Disbursement of medium-term public investment capital 2021-2025:

(unit: billion VND)

Also related to the work of compensation for site clearance, Representative Huynh Thanh Hung, Deputy Head of the Economic - Budget Department of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City mentioned the slow relocation of technical infrastructure for project construction. In which, the construction project of the intersection of Nguyen Van Linh - Nguyen Huu Tho had to wait for 15 months for approval to relocate the infrastructure, leading to delayed construction. Since then, NE raised the issue of coordination between agencies.

Sharing the same view on coordination between agencies, Representative Do Thi Minh Quan, Chief of Office of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City, said that through working sessions, the department suggested that it be necessary to determine the responsibilities of districts where there is little interest in site clearance. But in fact, when going to supervise, the district said that in the process of implementing this work, there were many documents sent to the department asking for support. That is, the coordination between departments and districts in site clearance needs to be done more closely.