If the implementation of the State Financial Statements in 2018 was full of surprises and difficulties, in 2020, the State Treasury report 2019 will be approved by units throughout the State Treasury has been implemented smoothly thanks to the lessons learned from the past.

Most State Treasury units have basically completed the synthesis to submit to
the Provincial People's Committee for review and reporting to the Provincial
People's Council. Photo: ThuyLinh

Inadequacies in accounting regime

According to Dang ThiThuy, Deputy General Director of the State Treasury, to implement the State's financial statements in 2018, the State Treasury detailed guidance documents for the whole system to implement. In parallel with the improvement of mechanisms and policies, the State Treasury urgently implemented the construction of the State Accounting General Information System to operate the system from July 2019, timely effective support for the report sending of units as well as synthesis work as well as the preparation of the first State financial statements in 2018.

“The State Treasury system has devoted a lot of resources and focused highly, effort, enthusiasm, overcoming difficulties to be able to implement the task. By the end of December 2019, the State Treasury had completed 63 sets of the provincial State Finance Report in 2018, submitted them to the People's Committee of the provinces and reported to the People's Council of the provinces. By the end of March 2020, the State Treasury completed the synthesis and preparation of the State financial statements of 2018, submitted to the Ministry of Finance, the Government, and submitted to the Standing Committee of the National Assembly to report to the National Assembly together with the report on the final settlement of the house budget in May 2020, according to regulations,” said the State Treasury leader.

Although the State Financial Statements 2018 recorded many positive reviews, there were still many difficulties surrounding the implementation.

Sharing about the difficulties, Tran Quang Nguyen, Director of the State Treasury of Ha Nam said the synthesis and preparation of the State Treasury's financial statements faced difficulties because this is a new task, the synthesis, analysis and evaluation of the financial situation of State Treasury civil servants are not deep. Besides, the number of level 1 budgeting units is very large because district People's Committees allocate the estimates directly to each budget using unit.

Furthermore, units assigned to manage non-budget financial funds with large balances (Land Development Fund, Fund for the Poor, Disaster Prevention Fund, etc) have difficulty in preparing and sending State financial statements for the State Treasury, because some funds have the account owner of vice presidents of provinces and districts, the accountants mainly record revenues and expenditures of the funds, the applicable accounting regime is unclear. In particular, data on local infrastructure assets is insufficient because the management units have not entered enough data into the software system of the Department of Public Asset Management.

Noting other difficulties from the State Treasury of Thai Binh, Nguyen Thi Minh Duc, Head of the Accounting Department of the unit shared that in Thai Binh province, there are about 500 units that have to send the State financial statements to the Treasury. Although it is the second year of implementation, about 10% of reports still have to be returned for the units to repair and supplement. Furthermore, the source of financial information for the preparation of the State Financial Statements (or the District Financial Information Synthesis Report) is largely dependent on external agencies (only information on budget revenues and expenditures is compiled from the system system TABMIS). Therefore, the State Treasury units face many difficulties in analysing and understanding their reports, assisting units in preparing and synthesising reports to provide financial information as well as in synthesising and preparing state financial statements. . Coordination of all levels and sectors in the preparation and reporting of SOE has not been given due attention. Meanwhile, awareness and professional qualifications of accountants, especially at commune and ward units, are not high, and still limited in terms of profession.

Communicating and guiding early

From these difficulties and problems, in each locality, there are good ways to complete the task of preparing State financial statements. For example, in Ha Nam, this local State Treasury formed a set of documents on the provincial State financial statements in 2019 to submit to the Provincial People's Committee to report to the Provincial People's Council according to regulations. Accordingly, in addition to the fourreports in accordance with the regulations of the State's financial statements, the set of documents explained legal issues about the State financial statements. For the report on the provincial state financial situation, from stating the absolute number and analysing the relative number of the total assets by each asset structure, Ha Nam State Treasury analysed in detail the size and proportion of assets, the certainty of assets and structure of the source of formation as well as the form of State assets in the province.

For State financial performance report, Ha Nam State Treasury also pointed out the balance between revenue and expenses in each accounting period of the state sector, with focus on revenue and expenditure activities. State budget and activities outside the State budget of State-owned units. At the same time, Ha Nam State Treasury also proposed some basic contents such as: speeding up the equitisation plan to ensure more efficient than the operation of provincial State-owned enterprises; nurturing and diversifying non-tax revenue sources, especially fees collected from non-business units andcontinue to strengthen solutions to speed up the disbursement of public investment capital, as well as sharply reduce the rate of capital construction in progress.

Nguyen Thi Minh Duc also shared that in Thai Binh, thanks to the good implementation of propaganda and guidance, in 2019, budget spending units were more proactive in providing reports. As a result, theaccounting officers of the State Treasury had more time to research, review information and synthesise information. Units that still have difficulty in this work such as the Party bloc or financial institutions are trained and instructed more carefully, ensuring the work is completed on schedule.

Despite many difficulties, thanks to lessons learned, up to now, most of the State Treasury has basically completed the synthesis to submit to the Provincial People's Committee for consideration and reporting to the Provincial People's Council. It is certain the national financial statements of 2019 will be completed in March 2021 to submit to the Government, report to the National Assembly and the State budget finalisation report in the May 2021 meeting in accordance with regulations.