Accelerating public investment disbursement

Localities are focusing on removing difficulties in the disbursement of public investment capital. Photo: Thùy Linh

Enhance the efficiency of control

According to Ministry of Finance, it is forecast that the rate of public investment disbursement in the whole country achieved 34.74% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister (over VND542,105 billion). Although this figure is not high, it also shows a significant gap compared to the end of June (27.75%) thanks to the efforts and determination of ministries and sectors as well as the State Treasury.

Thanh Hoa is top of the list of localities that have the highest rate of public investment disbursement with 46% up to this point. To achieve this figure, as an authority controlling and paying for state budget expenditures in the area, Thanh Hoa State Treasury has strictly implemented the instructions of the State Treasury and the Provincial People's Committee to launch many solutions to improve the quality of state budget expenditure control, especially in the field of payment of investment capital.

Accordingly, Thanh Hoa State Treasury has thoroughly informed each civil servant in charge of controlling expenditure, always raising the sense of responsibility, and enthusiastically guiding investors and project management boards.

In particular, the State Treasury has promoted transactions on online public services, which has reduced travel time for customers and prevented a backlog of payment dossiers. In addition, Thanh Hoa State Treasury also focused on inspection and examination of the implementation of legal provisions on control and disbursement of public investment capital, thereby detecting shortcomings and limitations in cost control to make timely corrections.

Or at the Thua Thien Hue State Treasury, according to this unit, the reason affecting the disbursement progress is the preparation, appraisal, approval, completion and signing of the contract so that the investor has a basis to prepare procedures and send documents to the State Treasury for requesting advance payment and making payment.

Therefore, relevant agencies and units need to coordinate with the investor to promptly remove bottlenecks in order to facilitate the progress of disbursement.

At the same time, according to the Thua Thien Hue State Treasury, when the volume is accepted, besides completing the procedures and capital payment documents, the investors need to strengthen the inspection and compare the dossiers with the documents in order to ensure that the information and data requested for payment are in accordance with regulations before being sent to the State Treasury, limiting errors, having to be supplemented and completed many times which takes time and affects the disbursement progress.

Currently, Thua Thien Hue State Treasury is trying to reform administrative procedures in accordance with regulations. The time to control the payment of public investment capital at the unit has been shortened. At the same time, the unit has promoted transactions on online public services, creating many advantages for investors and management boards to access capital quickly.

Transfer of capital in slow disbursement projects

From now to the end of the year, there are only five months left for ministries, sectors and localities to complete the disbursement of public investment capital from the state budget in 2022. Therefore, the Central State Treasury as well as the provinces and cities are making great efforts to control expenditure as well as coordinate with related units to accelerate capital disbursement.

Thanh Hoa State Treasury has asked the Provincial People's Committee to direct specialized agencies to strengthen inspection, examination and supervision to detect and remove obstacles for the units in the management of basic construction investment projects; arranging and strictly handling civil servants and public employees which have weak capacity and show signs of causing difficulties in performing tasks related to construction investment management.

Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee is continuing to request departments and sectors to carry out a general review of projects. In particular, the province has issued regulations that until August 30, 2022 if the project is still behind the disbursement schedule, it will be transferred to another project.

For construction materials, Thanh Hoa Provincial People's Committee will assign departments and agencies to announce monthly material prices instead of quarterly as at present to serve as a basis for projects that need to adjust contracts due to material price increases, helping investors and contractors take the initiative in the construction of projects and works.

Also setting a high target in the disbursement of public investment capital, Thua Thien Hue People's Committee is directing departments and agencies to actively direct and solve problems in site clearance, ensuring the handover of premises to the contractors on schedule in order to implement projects, especially projects facing long-term ground clearance problems, ODA projects, projects using central budget capital.

At the same time, the province required investors and local authorities to organize the formulation and approval of plans, conduct ground clearance and resettlement; strengthen coordination, come up with solutions to remove difficulties, and strengthen the apparatus and capacity of functional units to accelerate the progress of site clearance and resettlement based on their competence.

At the same time, Thua Thien Hue State Treasury also required investors to pay attention to the management and urge the recovery of advance payment; make a report on the assessment of the advance payment situation and send it to the treasury where the transaction is made.

It should clearly state the overdue amount that has not been recovered, the causes, difficulties, and propose handling measures, in order to limit overdue debts of advance payment – a cause of inefficiency in public investment capital.