Photo: Vietnam News

Many solutions have been taken

By the end of January 31, 2023, the total disbursed state budget investment in 2023 was about VND 12,819 billion, reaching 1.72% of the plan set by the Ministry of Finance and 1.81 % of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister. Foreign capital has not been disbursed. The low disbursement rate in the first months is because, in January 2023, ministries, central agencies and localities focused on assigning detailed capital plans for projects and preparing investment procedures to disburse capital plans, reported the Ministry of Finance.

According to the Ministry of Finance, in 2023, the pressure of disbursement is heavy because, in addition to disbursing capital assigned in the year, the remaining capital for the social-economic recovery and development program must be disbursed. Therefore, from the beginning of the year, many ministries, central and local agencies have been striving to reach the highest disbursement rate

For example, at the Ministry of Transport, in 2023, the Prime Minister assigns the Ministry of Transport a disbursement of VND94,161 billion. In January 2023, the Ministry of Transport issued a directive to speed up the disbursement of public investment, and deliver a detailed capital plan of the first phase to projects which have completed procedures with total capital of 94,135 billion VND (reaching 99.97%). By the end of January 2023, the Ministry of Transport has disbursed VND 1,700 billion (accounting for 1.81% of the capital plan).

According to the Ministry of Transport, to complete the disbursement task in 2023, the Ministry must disburse VND 8,000 billion per month on average. Therefore, the Ministry has focused on this work from the beginning of the year and required agencies and units to uphold the responsibility of the leader, to change thinking, and creatively apply new to new models to get the best results.

Or in Ninh Binh - one of the provinces with the highest disbursement rate in 2022, the Provincial People's Committee has just issued a decision to establish a Working Group to accelerate the disbursement of public investment capital in 2023 for works and projects in the province. The working group includes 13 members, led by the Chairman of Ninh Binh Provincial People's Committee. The working group is in charge of directing and coordinating with other units to solve tasks related to the implementation progress, quality of works, and disbursement progress of capital sources in 2023 of projects and works in Ninh Binh province, ensuring capital allocation target in 2023.

As for Hanoi - the city with a large amount of public investment capital, this city is also determined to disburse all the assigned capital by the end of 2023 with drastic solutions. The Hanoi People's Committee has requested the units to strictly comply with the provisions of the law on public investment, the principles, criteria, and order of priority for allocating investment capital from the state budget; improve the quality of the capital planning work, ensuring it is suitable with the project's capacity and performance; enhance the effectiveness of the disbursement according to the principle of post-inspection to ensure compliance with regulations and efficiency of public investment;

Continue to review and implement administrative reform for the procedures of construction investment, compensation for site clearance, and land recovery as well as uphold the role and responsibility of the leader in accelerating the implementation and disbursement of capital construction investment, improving the efficiency of investment capital. Hanoi also arranges and uses state budget capital for investment as "priming capital" to maximize capital sources of other economic sectors.

Identifying difficulties

Looking back at 2022, although the Government issued many resolutions, directives, public messages and documents to accelerate the disbursement of public investment capital, the disbursement is still very sluggish. According to Mr. Duong Ba Duc, Director of the Investment Department (Ministry of Finance), there are 25 existing problems and difficulties in many different fields, which are classified into three groups. The first group includes institutions, mechanisms and policies; main difficulties in the field of land, natural resources and environment; the field of state budget and public property, construction; bidding and public investment.

The second group includes difficulties related to implementation, such as the progress and quality of the formulation, appraisal, approval, and assignment of investment capital plans is not guaranteed and does not closely follow the performance capacity, leading to delays in the next steps; the direction is not drastic, the capacity of the project management agency is still limited with the psychology of putting the work at the end of the year; difficulties from donors for ODA projects. The third group is the skyrocketing prices of construction materials, especially, the price of gasoline, oil, iron, steel, soil, and sand in the first period of 2022.

According to a representative of the Ministry of Finance, despite some difficulties as mentioned, there are many provinces recording good disbursement rates. That's because they have proactively proposed solutions from the time of formulating the annual plan.

Therefore, in order to improve the disbursement of public investment capital, ministries, central and local agencies need to strictly implement capital allocation principles and criteria. The first is to give priority to the recovery of advance capital. The second is to pay for all projects which have been completed and put into use and are pending settlement; projects that have been settled but are still short of capital; completed projects in the 2023 plan. This is the factor to quickly conduct disbursement.

For transitional projects, it is necessary to review, and prioritize capital for inter-regional and key projects. New construction projects must meet all criteria such as sufficient investment procedures and not be entangled in construction sites. As for the key projects, the disbursement strictly follows the set plan.

Currently, the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, and the Ministry of Finance have specific solutions to handle and propose to competent authorities to handle difficulties and problems related to the policy. However, the strongest and most practical solution still lies in the high determination of ministries, central and local agencies in the implementation of disbursement.