The Ministry of Transport (MoT) will punish organisations and individuals in project management units whose failure to fulfill their responsibilities cause a slow disbursement of funds.

Construction work on the Mai Dich-Nam Thang Long flyover in Hanoi.
This is one of the projects suffering from slow disbursement progress

The decision followed Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc’s requirement. In the monthly Government meeting last month, PM Phuc asked the MoT to implement more measures to speed up disbursement progress.

For example, the Mai Dich-Thang Long flyover project is one of the main projects in Hanoi. It planned to disburse more than 2.1 trillion VND (90.4 million USD) of official development assistance this year. However, by the middle of this month, its disbursement was too low compared with schedule. Its first package disbursed 443 billion VND (18.7 million USD), reaching 39.4 percent of the plan, whereas in its second package it disbursed 403.3 billion VND (17.2 million USD), reaching 38.6 percent of the plan.

Duong Viet Roan, Director of the Thang Long Project Management Board – the project’s investor – said the slow disbursement was because of many reasons.

The project changed technological design thus it needed more time. Moreover, transporting large girders, each weighing about 100 tonnes, must use special vehicles so the licensing procedure was prolonged.

The same situation was also witnessed at the Ho Chi Minh Trail project management board.

Lam Van Hoang, director of the board, said this year the board was given 1.5 trillion VND (64.7 million USD) and 114.8 billion VND (4.9 million USD). So far it has disbursed 96 billion VND (4.1 million USD) from this year’s capital, reaching 6.4 percent of the plan, and 88.2 billion VND (3.8 million USD) from last year’s capital, reaching 71 percent of the plan. 

Nguyen Duy Lam, Director of the Planning and Investment Department under the MoT, said by the end of last month, the MoT disbursed about 6.8 trillion VND (295.7 million USD), making up only 27.4 percent of the scheduled amount. 

Lam said that one of the main reasons for the slow progress was that the project met difficulties in completing procedures related to capital supplements and the settlement of completed parts.

The department summed up plans for disbursement of every project and submitted it to the MoT. The MoT and concerned organisations would give guidance to investors and project management units, resolving their difficulties to ensure the MoT’s disbursement progress, Lam said.

Roan also confirmed that from now until the end of this year, the Thang Long Project Management Board would ask contractors to speed up construction work and assign more human resources.

The committee would work with localities to resolve every obstacle related to ground clearance, he added.

Minister of Transport Nguyen Van The said that the disbursement progress depended on the project management board.

If any project disbursed less than 95 percent of its capital, the MoT would not assign more duty in the next year, The said.

The MoT recently also sent a letter asking investors and project management boards to strengthen supervision on construction site’s quality.