Need to be more aggressive with disbursing public investment

	Shortcomings in Decree guiding the Law on Public Investment need to be amended
	Ministry of Finance has rectified the report on disbursement of investment capital
	Public investment: resolutely adjust the capital of slow-moving projects

The disbursement rate of foreign capital is particularly low compared to the same period in 2017 (only reaching 38.65% compared to 57.11%). Photo: ST

Lower than the same period

In terms of annual plans or budget estimates, all levels and sectors always set a goal to ensure disbursement of all plans, but the reality shows that there is always a certain difference. Given the fact that many years ago, disbursement results were lower than the plan of the National Assembly, every year, the Government and the Prime Minister always had drastic instructions to speed up the disbursement progress.

According to Mr. Le Tuan Anh - Deputy Director of Investment Department, Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Finance with the assigned role is the agency of managing investment capital payment, and during the process of budget management, it has always actively synthesized grasping the situation, sticking to the progress of disbursing investment capital of projects, actively synthesizing and reporting to the Prime Minister, proposing timely solutions to solve problems. "The disbursement management mechanism has now been revised, with maximum simplification of the order, procedures and time. Problems from ministries and localities sent to the Ministry of Finance were studied and answered immediately,"- Mr. Tuan Anh said.

There are 5 ministries, branches and 11 localities with high disbursement rate of over 80% of the plan, of which 5 localities have disbursement rates of over 90%: Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, Bac Ninh, Nam Dinh, Binh Phuoc. However, there are still many ministries, central branches and localities with low disbursements, namely: 31/56 ministries, central branches and 28/63 localities with disbursement rates planned for the first 11 months of 2018 under 65% of the annual plan, of which 21 ministries, central branches and 4 localities have disbursement rates below 50%; There are 13 ministries, the central branch has disbursement rate lower than 30%, even the Ministry has not disbursed the capital plan.However, that is not enough. Evidence is that the statistics of public investment payment in 11 months of 2018 were estimated at 239,573.357 billion VND, only 59.94% of the National Assembly plan and 61.62% of the Prime Minister's plan. The Government assigned lower than the same period in 2017 (with the corresponding ratio of 59.21% and 65.12%).

Regarding the reasons for slow disbursement, through summarizing reports of units, the Ministry of Finance has pointed out some problems, shortcomings and unresolved issues leading to unsatisfactory disbursement: Obstacles in site clearance; procedures for adjusting items, adjusting total investment for projects, adjusting construction drawing designs and estimates; due to the influence of complicated terrain, weather; the capacity of some contractors is not guaranteed; transitional projects under construction have not yet checked and completed the volume to disburse capital payment.

For Government bond capital (GBC), the allocation of GBC plan is not close to disbursement capacity of ministries, sectors and localities, which are the main reason for this disbursement rate, only reached 35.23% of the plan. Specifically, for ministries and central branches, the total planned capital assigned is VND 15,863.456 billion, but all projects are new start-up projects, so now most of the projects have completed making profiles of technical designs, construction drawing designs, selection of construction and installation units; For localities, many new construction projects have all been allocated in the plan of GBC in the period of 2017-2020 in 2017 and 2018, so some projects exceed the disbursement capacity in 2018.

For foreign capital, the disbursement rate of foreign capital is particularly low compared to the same period of 2017 (only 38.65% compared to 57.11%). Slow disbursement can be attributed to a number of reasons such as: Mechanism problems (some projects are temporarily suspended to adjust the total investment, investment guidelines, re-evaluation of effectiveness); obstacles due to improper allocation of capital plans; problems on the project side; problems caused by sponsors…

To quickly adjust capital

In the recent report to the Government, the Ministry of Finance has proposed some more drastic solutions. Regarding the capital plan, for the remaining 2018 capital plan, the Ministry of Planning and Investment is requested to report to the Prime Minister to continue assigning capital plans to projects that have completed investment procedures according to regulations. Regarding the plan of Government bond capital to be adjusted, the Prime Minister is requested to announce the plan for ministries and branches to be supplemented with GBC.

Regarding the disbursement of foreign capital plans, the Prime Minister is requested to assign the Ministry of Planning and Investment to quickly assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with ministries, branches and localities in submitting to the Prime Minister plans to adjust plans of foreign capital in 2018 in accordance with the direction of the Prime Minister. Regarding the speeding up the acceptance and payment schedule, according to the regulations, the annual capital plan of the project only pays for the completed and tested volumes up to December 31 of the plan year. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance asked ministries and agencies to direct investors to focus on reviewing the volume performed for acceptance in December, on that basis to complete the payment procedures, and immediately send to the State Treasury to pay according to regulations. For projects with approved decisions on settlement of completed projects, the ministries, branches and localities are requested to urgently request investors to send to the State Treasury as a basis for final payment to contractors according to current regulations.

Eliminate ineffective project, speed up the disbursement of public investment capital

From the perspective of the unit directly implementing, Ms. Long Thi Hong Thuy - Deputy Director of the Department of Expenditure Control, the State Treasury proposed the Ministry of Finance to propose the Government to direct ministries, branches and localities to focus on revision, problems on policies and mechanisms stipulated in Construction Law, Investment Law, Bidding Law, Land Law and guiding documents ..., in order to promptly remove difficult barriers, obstacles and create favorable conditions for projects implemented on schedule with high quality ... Proposing the Government to continue directing ministries, branches and localities to drastically implement solutions to speed up disbursement of public investment capital, with mechanism for monitoring results, upholding the responsibilities of the heads of each department and responsibilities of each staff member and public officials.