Administrative reform in Finance: "It takes two to tango"

Creative, flexible

Determining the formulation of legal documents is one of the key tasks in administrative reform, in 2016 the Ministry of Finance continued to perfect the legal system of Finance to ensure content and form, quantity and quality of legal documents. By the end of 30th November, the Ministry of Finance submitted to the Government 68 projects with 41 of them having been signed to issue; the other 27 are under procedure for signing. The Ministry drafted and promulgated 294 circulars under its authority, of which the majority have significant impact on people and businesses, such as the export and import duty law, the Law amending and supplementing some articles of the Law on VAT, the Law on Special Consumption Tax, and the Law on Tax Administration; the Resolution amending and supplementing some articles of Resolution No. 55/2010/NQ-QH12 on tax reduction or exemption of agricultural land use; proposal to build the Securities Act (as amended); and issued Decree 145/2016/NDi-CP amending and supplementing some articles of Decree No. 108/2013/ND-CP on sanctioning of administrative violations in securities and securities markets, etc.

Also to the end of December, 2016, the Ministry of Finance implemented to review and issue 16 Decisions to standardize 908 administrative procedures in the areas of functionality and management tasks of the Ministry of Finance. In particular, the Ministry of Finance has reviewed and proposed to simplify 91 administrative procedures and citizenship papers as well as abolition of 17 declarations and 16 administrative procedures. This move is expected to help people and businesses save more than 5.1 billion VND/year.

In the modernization work, the systems unit under the Ministry of Finance continues to actively implement the application of information technology in the building of e-government. As of 15th of November, 2016, the VNACSS/VCIS System had more than 69,390 companies participating with a total import and export value reached $US 298.44 billion and a total of 8.36 million Customs declarations. The National Single Window mechanism has officially connected with 10 of 14 ministries with 36 administrative procedures, handling over 204,000 sets of administrative records with the participation of more than 8,200 businesses.

The online tax return system was implemented in all provinces and cities, with 564,488 firms participating to use the service, reaching 99.64% of active enterprises in the country; so far, the number of received and processed electronic tax returns is more than 35.4 million records.

Evaluating of the administrative reform activities of Finance in 2016, Mr. Ngo Huu Loi - Head of the Legal Department, Ministry of Finance said that the Finance Ministry has a lot of comprehensive content reform, each is important, but some breakthroughs should be pointed out. First of all is to promote institutional reform in a creative and flexible way, such as a proposed law that revises many laws, which has created the legal basis for the simplification of administrative procedures, for the recent modernization process, as well as to facilitate people and businesses. Besides, the reform was implemented through innovating the management practices from pre-audit, to post review. Even though this will increase pressure and responsibility on the authorities but to facilitate people and businesses.

Prevent negative

Although there are still significant numbers to be listed in 2016, it is undeniable that, apart from the inherent difficulties and obstacles, the reform process in general and the administrative reform in particular faced more and more difficulties. As a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary management Ministry, with a broad scope of management from central to local levels, the administrative reform in the field of finance is not an exception.

To achieve greater efficiency in administrative reform in the future, according to Mr. Ngo Huu Loi, firstly, requires the efforts and cooperation of the management bodies with people and businesses since “It takes two to tango". Along with the State administrative agencies to reform the institution, to transform the management methods and to simplify administrative procedures, companies also need to understand that change to implement with appropriate adjustments. While the administrative agencies implement the modernization, enterprises must also meet the technology infrastructure to be able to connect and execute. "As the subject of reform, people and businesses need to point out inadequacies, making initiatives and suggestions on revision or issue new policies and at the same time joining to oversee the implementation of the management bodies, thereby improving the efficiency of the administrative reform", Mr. Loi stressed.

Also according to representatives of the Ministry of Finance, because of the broad scope of management, administrative reform needs to be conducted synchronously from the central to local levels, and to be comprehensively conducted at all aspects from institutional reform, administrative reform to modernization, and IT applications. In addition, Finance is related to many branches, many fields of other ministries, so the work of administrative reform needs the comprehensive participation of these units.

Along with that, the Finance field will continue to implement the key tasks that were assigned by the Government and the Prime Minister; to study and adequately formulate the programs and plans to be implemented throughout 2017; focus its resources to effectively implement the Law and Resolutions which were adopted; study of mechanisms and policies to improve the business environment, ensuring transparency and simplification of administrative procedures, shortening the implementation time of administrative procedures.

Finally, the core requirement for successful reform is the people who perform the public services. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance will continue to implement the project "Promoting to reform the public service and public officer system ", thereby promoting decentralization and completing public service re-organizations. This solution will help the administration to really come alive and prevent or handle problems, limitations, even the negativity of officers in performing public services.