The right time to carry out the merger of provincial administrative units

Challenges in implementation

According to Mr. Bui Van Tieng, Chairman of the Da Nang City Historical Science Association, former Head of the Organization Committee of the Da Nang City Party Committee, this can be considered the right time to merge provincial-level administrative units, not organize the district level, and continue to merge commune-level administrative units.

Mr. Tieng acknowledged that when the ministries and branches at the central level have been reorganized, the district level has had a policy of eliminating them to reduce intermediate administrative levels, and it is also possible to reorganize the provincial administrative apparatus for synchronization.

According to Mr. Tieng, this not only creates new development space but also contributes to preparing for the country's strong development period right before the 14th National Party Congress - the time identified as the beginning of the nation's rising era.

Da Nang City is lacking space for development (Photo: Hoai Son).

According to Mr. Tieng, the challenge in the implementation process is that people will encounter some difficulties in administrative procedures during the transition period between the two models, when the district level is still there or when the district level has been abolished, when the provinces/cities are still separate or have been merged.

To overcome this, Mr. Tieng said that it is necessary to promote the application of digital technology in administrative management, ensuring a quick and transparent process of processing documents. At the same time, it is necessary to arrange public reception locations at the old district-level administrative headquarters to facilitate people, avoiding the situation of having to travel far or having difficulty accessing public services.

It is necessary to promote the application of digital technology in administrative management to ensure quick file processing (Photo: Hoai Son).

According to Mr. Tieng, our Party has identified culture as the spiritual foundation of society, the driving force for breakthrough development, so it is necessary to have a correct understanding of the role of culture in life. It is necessary to recognize the relationship between economy and culture, always respect local cultural heritage and know how to preserve and promote those values.

Thus, the larger the area, the more space will be created to preserve and promote cultural heritage values with distinctive identities. This not only helps to preserve the unique values of each region, but also contributes to building the local brand in a harmonious development as a whole.

How to make it most convenient for people

Mr. Tieng said that the most important criterion in merging provinces/cities according to the current 2-level local government model is how to make it most convenient for people, how to properly implement the direction of General Secretary To Lam: "Do not let people come to the government, but the political system itself comes to the people".

For example, when there is a need for ambulance or fire fighting, citizens of the newly merged province/city will be handled as thoroughly and effectively as when they were still citizens of the unmerged/non-merged province/city.

According to Mr. Tieng, when establishing centrally-governed cities, we were aware of the distinction between urban and rural areas. Therefore, in the process of merging provinces/cities on a national scale this time, according to him, centrally-governed cities should still exist.

Accordingly, each centrally-governed city can merge with a neighboring province, but it may also be sufficient to merge one or several districts/communes of the neighboring province.

A corner of Da Nang city center (Photo: Hoai Son).

Previously, Da Nang became a centrally-run city with the central urban area being Da Nang city of Quang Nam - Da Nang province as the core; meanwhile, Hue became a centrally-run city with the direction of including all district-level administrative units of Thua Thien Hue province, not just taking the central urban area being Hue city of Thua Thien Hue province as the core.

Mr. Tieng emphasized that it is important that after the merger, the brand and model of a centrally-governed city continue to be promoted.

According to Mr. Tieng, the reasonable roadmap is to abolish all district-level administrative units; then merge provincial-level administrative units along with merging commune-level administrative units (to reduce the number of direct contacts for provinces/cities after the merger); finally, each new province/city after the merger rearranges the agencies/units (departments, branches) in the new provincial-level political system according to the general model.

Dantri.com.vn

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/noi-vu/thoi-diem-phu-hop-de-thuc-hien-viec-sap-nhap-don-vi-hanh-chinh-cap-tinh-20250402183433973.htm