From amending the Law on Planning to the story of preventing waste in institution building

The 2017 Planning Law was Congress passed on November 24, 2017 and effective from January 1, 2019. The Law on Planning together with documents guiding the implementation of the law have created a complete system of legal documents to implement unified and synchronous planning activities nationwide, contributing to the implementation of new thinking on planning work, according to which planning always needs to be one step ahead.

However, the shortcomings in the implementation of the Planning Law have been clearly revealed. One of the shortcomings is that urban planning and rural planning have not been clearly defined at which level in the national planning system. There is also a lack of synchronization in the authority to organize the appraisal of provincial planning tasks and the authority to appraise provincial planning.

Another shortcoming is that while planning involves consulting with ministries, sectors, localities, agencies, organizations and relevant individuals, some of the planning content is classified as state secrets. This means that it creates inconsistencies and “mismatches” with the Law on Protection of State Secrets.

Therefore, amending the Law on Planning is really necessary to perfect the content and methods of planning associated with reforming administrative procedures in investment and business.

Especially in the current context when the fight against corruption, negativity and waste is being promoted, the National Assembly's discussion of the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Planning, the Law on Investment, the Law on Investment under the form of public-private partnership and the Law on Bidding (1 law amending 4 laws) not only increases the synchronization and compatibility between the laws but also contributes to quickly bringing resources for development and growth, preventing resources (both domestic and foreign) from being wasted or not being effective. At the same time, it contributes to "solving" difficult cases in investment practice, such as investors are willing to spend millions of dollars to do it but the items that need to be added are not included in the land use planning.

The fact that 1 law amending 4 laws is being considered by the National Assembly also contributes to speeding up the implementation of projects and their effects on the economy, especially large projects with spillover effects, instead of having to wait indefinitely.

Combating waste in mobilizing and using resources is an urgent task today. Illustration photo.

In recent times, the backlog, limitations, and inadequacies in the work of institutional building have caused seemingly invisible but in reality very large amounts of waste. In a recent important article titled “Fighting Waste”, as the head of our Party, General Secretary To Lam frankly mentioned a form of waste that few people mention, which is waste due to lack of planning, inefficiency in public investment, or abandoned projects that are not used...

In fact, such waste is not simply a loss of assets but also creates social injustice, especially in access to resources. When national resources are wasted, development opportunities will be narrowed, increasing the gap between rich and poor and causing a decline in people's trust in the ruling party. The less mentioned, the more easily these forms of waste of resources will be ignored over time, and there is even a reason to "naturally" exist behind the screen of weakness in institutional building.

At the thematic discussion "New era, era of national growth" with the trainees of the Training course, updating knowledge and skills for planning cadres of the Central Executive Committee of the 14th Party Congress held on October 31, 2024 at Ha Noi, General Secretary To Lam pointed out that mechanisms, policies and laws have not created a truly favorable environment to promote innovation and attract resources from domestic and foreign investors as well as the people. Of the three biggest bottlenecks today: institutions, infrastructure and human resources, institutions are the "bottleneck" of "bottlenecks".

In particular, the General Secretary specifically named a number of forms of waste that are emerging fiercely, including the quality of law making and completion that does not meet practical requirements, leading to difficulties, hindering implementation, causing loss and waste of resources.

Therefore, with the viewpoint of not wasting resources from institutional building work, the General Secretary once again requested that the work of building and enforcing laws should not be hasty, but also not be perfectionist, so as not to lose opportunities; take people and businesses as the center and subject; regularly evaluate the effectiveness and quality of policies after promulgation to promptly adjust inadequacies and conflicts, minimize loss and waste of resources; proactively detect and quickly remove "bottlenecks" caused by legal regulations.

Previously, in the article “Fighting against waste” with the viewpoint that the fight against waste needs to be perceived and placed in the right position and requirements, General Secretary To Lam emphasized a task of focusing on thoroughly resolving the causes leading to waste of public assets, natural resources, resources for caring for the people and developing the country. Here, the focus is on strongly innovating the work of building, perfecting and enforcing laws, considering this an important factor in preventing and combating waste.

Same there "Regularly evaluate the effectiveness and quality of policies after promulgation to promptly adjust inadequacies and conflicts, minimize loss and waste of resources; proactively detect and quickly remove "bottlenecks" caused by legal regulations.", the General Secretary requested.