Amending policies to control public land and housing management

	Transform and relocate hundreds of houses and public land
	Solve "problems" causing loss and waste of public land
	Must pay rental land fee if using public land for business

The draft Decree amending and supplementing Decree 167 is being put up for consultation widely by the Ministry of Finance before submitting to the Government for promulgation.

Key legal framework

To implement the Law on Law on Management and Use of Public Assets, the Government issued Decree 167/2017/ND-CP dated December 31 2017 re-arranging and handling Public Assets to replace Decision No. 09/2007/QD-TTg dated January 19, 2007 of the Government. The Ministry of Finance issued Circular No. 37/2018/TT-BTC guiding the implementation of Decree 167.

After more than a year of implementing these regulations, the Ministry of Finance said Decree 167 is a key legal framework for ministries, central agencies and localities to rearrange the management and use of public housing and land towards the goal of further discipline, savings and efficiency. In addition, the responsibility of sectors and levels as well as agencies, organisations, units and businesses using houses and land allocated or leased by the State has been changed for the better.

The standardisation of legal provisions also ensures transparency, strictness and clarity in re-arranging and handling of housing and land, contributing to administrative reform. The responsibilities of all levels, sectors as well as agencies, organisations, units and enterprises using houses and land are specifically stipulated, ensuring consistency and synchronisation with the law. Principles and forms of handling houses and land stipulated in Decree 167 have ensured comprehensiveness and consistency with situations arising and the market economy mechanism.

However, with the "sensitive" factor of public assets, especially houses and land, shortcomings to be amended in line with reality are unavoidable. From the recommendations of ministries, sectors and localities; and from actual surveys and understanding, the Ministry of Finance is planning to amend and supplement Decree 167.

More strict and specific

Nguyen Tan Thinh- Deputy Director of Department of Public Property Management under the Ministry of Finance said that “we expect to regulate more specific on the scope of application. Point a, Clause 2 Article 1 Decree 167 stipulates that except for “the land and houses of a joint-stock company that are transferred or leased by the State or lawfully transferred after the time of approval of the equitisation plan by the competent authority” are not re-arranged, which is inconsistent because these houses and lands are subject to be re-arranged and handled, so the provisions should be abolished.

Thinh said inaddition to "houses and land not owed by agencies, organisations, units, businesses", there are many types of houses and land that need to be excluded from the application scope as their management and use is stipulated in other laws such as land under the management of the Chairman of the Commune People's Committee; land, houses and works that are assets of road, railway and inland waterway infrastructure assets; land, houses and works are seaport infrastructure assets; houses and land are assets of debt handling of credit institutions. All of these assets need to be excluded from the scope subject to be rearranged and handled.

Another important content is the case of land acquisition for the purposes of national defense and security, socio-economic development for national and public interests and the accounting and payment of related expenses when implementing decisions on handling houses and land in the following forms: Recovery and transfer to localities for management and handling.

To unify implementation and comply with the Land law, the Ministry of Finance intends to propose the Government that land recovery for defence and security purposes and socio-economic development for national and public interests will be in accordance with the Land Law. When implementing the decision to handle houses and land in the forms of recovery, transfer to the locality for management and handling, agencies, organisations, units and enterprises which are managing, using houses and land will have to revise down the assets and asset values on the accounting books. However, the Decree does not specify the accounting on the accounting books. The Ministry of Finance expects to submit to the Government to supplement a provision on these contents.

The draft provides some amendments on competency to handle houses and land in the form of recovery, transfer, sale of houses and land of socio-political organisations and management, use of revenue from the sale of properties on land, transfer of land use rights; specifies subjects to arrangement of houses and land including holding companies and subsidiary companies of which 50% of charter capital owned by the holding companies; and amend and supplement regulations on selling assets on land, transferring land use rights.

Lawyer Ha Huy Tu said that the Ministry of Finance needs to review, amend and supplement some sentences and words in Decree No. 167/2017 / ND-CP, some of which are missing or unclear, to ensure consistency and easy understanding in implementation. He gave an example, saying that the provision on recovery of lands and houses in cases of transferring, selling, giving, donating or using houses and land to ensure the performance of civil obligations is not consistent. In reality, authorities may discover the above violations but can only recover the land and houses if the concerned parties have not yet sued. If a suit has been filed, the court has jurisdiction. Therefore, this provision should exclude cases handled by the court.

Another example is that the Minister, the Head of the Central Agencies and the Chairmen of the provincial People's Committees are responsible for directing agencies, organisations, units and enterprises to pay all revenue gained from illegitimate leasing, cooperation, business, joint-venture, and association to the State budget.

Tu said the issue to be clarified here is the revenue. In fact, there is big difference in amount shown on the contracts of business cooperation, join-venture, leasing and actual amount that concerned parties pay to each other, which is not shown on the accounting books and financial reports. To limit and end this situation, it is necessary to revise the above content towards specifying concept of "the revenue" or using another concept.