Secretary General of the National Assembly Bui Van Cuong has just signed the announcement of the Conclusion of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the interpretation of the provisions in Clause 1, Article 6 of the Law on Public Investment (at the 29th Session, January 2024).
The government will provide detailed instructions.
Specifically, at the 29th session, the National Assembly Standing Committee reviewed and commented on the Government's proposal requesting the National Assembly Standing Committee to explain the provisions in Clause 1, Article 6 of the Law on Public Investment.
Accordingly, the National Assembly Standing Committee concluded that Article 6 of the Law on Public Investment stipulates the classification of public investment projects according to the nature of the project (in Clause 1) and according to the importance and scale of the project (in Clause 2) as a basis for applying legal provisions in determining the order, procedures, and authority to approve investment policies and decisions, and organize implementation.
The National Assembly Standing Committee affirmed that Article 6 of the Law on Public Investment does not stipulate which tasks or expenditures must use public investment capital. This law also does not stipulate that public investment capital must only be used to implement investment projects in construction, renovation, upgrading, and expansion of projects that have been invested in construction; purchase assets; purchase, repair, and upgrade equipment and machinery.
According to the National Assembly Standing Committee, the Law on Public Investment, the Law on State Budget and other relevant laws do not have any provisions prohibiting the use of regular expenditures to implement investment projects in construction, renovation, upgrading, and expansion of invested construction projects; purchase of assets; purchase, repair, and upgrade of equipment and machinery.
To resolve current difficulties and obstacles, the National Assembly Standing Committee requests the Government to promptly issue documents providing detailed regulations and instructions on these contents.
Pursue to the end, resolve to the end
This can be seen as the output from the final debate and final resolution at the National Assembly forum.
Remember at the 6th session in November 2023, during the question-and-answer session related to the first group of issues on general economics , many delegates raised concerns about the use of regular expenditure budget to purchase, repair, and upgrade public property projects.
Opinions said that the Law on Public Investment has provisions on the nature of public investment projects, leading to the understanding that all new construction, renovation, upgrading, expansion, asset purchase, repair, upgrading projects, etc. must use public investment capital. This issue has been raised by many National Assembly deputies in previous sessions.
Responding later, Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc said that this problem needs to have the law explained by the National Assembly Standing Committee so that ministries, branches and localities can implement it accurately and with peace of mind.
According to the Minister of Finance, the Law on Public Investment issued since 2014 binds all activities, for example, repair, upgrade, expansion, etc. All public assets, regardless of their value, are invested in, so of course when we implement those assets, they must be regulated by the Law on Public Investment.
In addition, the Law on Public Investment also stipulates that expenditures not included in the medium-term public investment plan cannot be spent, and if implemented, will be a violation.
Therefore, this issue must be resolved to ensure economic development, ensure no problems during implementation, and ensure that when officials properly implement instructions, there are no violations.
Informing that the document has been returned three times, the Minister of Finance hopes that the National Assembly will resolve the issue of the boundary between regular expenditure and public investment expenditure so that implementation does not get in the way, and that officials will follow instructions correctly and will not make mistakes.
National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue added that through reviewing the National Assembly agencies, it was confirmed that there were no problems with the Law on Public Investment.
For clarification, the National Assembly Chairman invited the Chairman of the National Assembly's Finance and Budget Committee, Le Quang Manh, to report further.
Answering later, Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee Le Quang Manh emphasized that the problem of using regular expenditures for repairing and expanding public assets originated from the circular of the Ministry of Finance, not from the Law on Public Investment or the Law on State Budget.
To resolve this problem, the Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee suggested that the National Assembly Standing Committee could be asked to explain the law.
In the near future, the Government will issue documents regulating and providing detailed instructions on these contents. Localities and ministries will have a basis to boldly implement them. And then, if officials follow the instructions correctly, they will not make mistakes as Minister Ho Duc Phoc once worried.
TH (according to Vietnamnet)Source
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