Contents of verification and approval expenses for the completed project's settlement shall be under the decision-making authority of the verifying agency and the approving person of the completed project’s settlement to pay for verification and approval of the completed project’s settlement.

Mr. Nguyen Van Nam works at the Finance Department of a district in Bac Ninh province. His unit is implementing the regulations of expenditure and expense control on the works’ verification and financial settlement fees as follows:

According to Article 21 of Circular No. 09/2016/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance, his unit opened account 3713 at the State Treasury to receive fees for verification of financial settlement of works transferred by investors. When making payments, the unit only uses the payment authorization letter with the general spending content to withdraw money, because it is a deposit account.

For example, "withdrawal of settlement expenses" or "withdrawal of payments to department staff on April 30 and May 1", the Treasury disagreed, required a list of documents to clearly state the contents related to the content payment under Clause 2, Article 21 of Circular No. 09/2016/TT-BTC. As for the content of welfare expenditures for the whole agency, the Treasury did not allow expenditures and replied that they only paid for those units related to the verification of settlements.

Mr. Nam asked if there is currently any regime to manage and control this fee or only Circular No. 09/2016/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance?

The Ministry of Finance responded to this issue as follows:

In Clause 2, Article 21 of Circular No. 09/2016/TT-BTC dated January 18, 2016, of the Ministry of Finance, providing for settlement of completed projects funded by the State capital, regulations on management and use of costs of verification and approval for financial settlements are stated as follows:

“a) When carrying out verification, the verifying authority shall send the investor a written request for payment of costs of verification and approval for the financial settlement at the percentage prescribed in clause 1 of this Article. The cost of verification and approval for financial settlement is constituted by the following elements:

- Pay time-based or fixed remuneration of persons directly verifying and approving the financial settlement;

- Pay costs of specialists or consulting organizations verifying the project financial settlement in case the verifying authority hire specialists or consulting organizations under time-based contracts;

- Pay expenses for business trips, costs of office stationery, translation service, printing, conferences, seminars, procurement of computers or equipment serving the purpose of verification and approval for the financial settlement;

- Other expenses related to project finalization.

b) The verifying authority shall be entitled to use verification and approval fees for purposes specified in point a of this clause at the ratio stipulated in clause 1 of this Article. The remaining amount of fees for verification and approval of the financial settlement of the current year after the payment process as regulations shall be entitled to use in the following year”.

According to the above provisions, contents of verification and approval expenses for the completed project's settlement shall be under the decision-making authority of the verifying agency and the approving person of the completed project’s settlement to pay for verification and approval of the completed project’s settlement (including the allocation of costs of verification and approval for the completed project’s settlement).

The Ministry of Finance has the answer for him to know and follow the regulations.