HCM City: Discuss solutions for public investment capital disbursement

HCM City committed to reaching 95% of public investment capital disbursement

Increase but it is not an achievement

At the conference, Le Thi Huynh Mai – Director of HCM City Planning and Investment Department, said in the first eight months of 2020, the rate of public capital disbursement of the city topped VND 21,300 billion, equivalent to more than 50% of the plan (excluding projects that are not complete settlement). Compared to the same period in 2019, public capital disbursement of the city was higher in terms of rate and absolute value.

Analysing several reasons for the slow public capital disbursement of the city, besides the pandemic, land clearance of some projects facing difficulties in valuation and dealing with people, there were also subjective reasons. They include the looseness and lack of resoluteness of the leaders in project implementation and capital disbursement.

Director of the Planning and Investment Department of HCM City suggested in the last four months of 2020, it should be more drastic in the implementation of the central and city's directives in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic; enhance the responsibility of the head of governing body, maintain progress meeting on public investment disbursement twice a week to accelerate the project and remove problems at projects (land, land clearance). Some projects must focus on promoting land clearance. Periodically checking, disbursing and publicising the list of slow disbursement units.

Assessing efficiency in the disbursement of public investment, Chairman of People's Committee of HCM City Nguyen Thanh Phong suggested all units pay attention to the figure for public investment disbursement, although it increased higher than last year, exceeding 50%, it was a reminder number and not an achievement. The units were not considered as having achievement and must be aware of the particularly important role of accelerating disbursement of public investment capital in the current period to contribute to boosting aggregate demand for the economy, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Specific commitment to disburse capital

At the conference, Chairman of HCM City People's Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong requested heads of districts, departments, investors and project management boards to explain problems in their projects leading to slow capital disbursement and at the same time commit to have specific numbers on capital disbursement from now until the end of the year.

From the actual situation of disbursement in districts, HCM City leaders requested spending time to directly call the director of the Department of Planning and Investment on weekly and daily to immediately solve problems, raising capital disbursement rate.

Along with that, Chairman Phong told departments: “Do not be afraid of your delay to cause difficulties for the facilities. Do not sent documents back and forth, made a phone call to directly discuss when arising problems, to do it immediately and drastically. If you focus on processing, regular briefings, this rate will be higher than 50%. Regarding the valuation, the valuation council has structured a new replacement, I had directed to start solving problems immediately."

Chairman Phong also emphasised the assignment of capital from the beginning of the year must be considered the feasibility. The slow disbursement of capital has many objective reasons like land clearance but having poor capacity to consume capital and management capacity is subjective.

Concluding the conference, HCM City People's Committee Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong stressed the rapid disbursement of public investment capital means a lot in promoting the economic growth of the city amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

He gave directives to periodically inspect the disbursement situation, publicise the list of units delayed in disbursement and send it to the Department of Finance and Department of Planning and Investment for statistics.

In addition to checking which projects have problems to remove obstacles immediately, the Chairman of HCM City People's Committee also assigned a number of projects to start before October. Also, raising the responsibility of leaders, changing working methods to make a breakthrough in the disbursement of public investment capital.

Under the directives of the People's Committee of HCM City, the whole system of governments, departments, sectors and 24 districts will make the best efforts to reach more than 95% by the end of 2020.

“The heads of the governing bodies, the investors were fully responsible for the disbursement results. By October 15, the disbursement must reach 80%. The governing body, the head, the investor would not be considered for emulation and completion of the tasks and will not enjoy the reward if the disbursement rate of public investment is not accomplished,” Chairman Phong requested.