State Treasury meets schedule on State financial statements

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As of November 30, provincial units had sent financial statements to the State Treasury. Photo: T.L

Provincial units basically submitted financial statements

According to the State Treasury, more than 53,300 units must provide financial information in 2018 for the State Treasury nationwide. As of November 30, provincial units basically submitted financial statements to the State Treasury. For central units, so far 16 of 59 units submitted financial statements to the State Treasury. In addition, the State Treasury has worked with localities in summarising district-level financial information, provincial-level State financial statements to meet schedule for reporting to authorities.

At local State treasuries, the preparation of the State financial statements has been implemented smoothly. At Hai Duong State Treasury, Vu Duc Trong, Director of Hai Duong State Treasury said 1,333 units of Hai Duong province are required to submit financial information to the State Treasury, of which, 1,294 level-1 estimate units, and public asset administration agencies, tax and Treasury authorities. Currently, the State Treasury has received 100 financial statements of units. 100 percent of level-1 estimate units have submitted financial statements and are waiting for synthesis.

To achieve the results, according to Trong, in addition to working with the financial agency, Hai Duong State Treasury held a training course for district treasury officials. The State Accounting Division was assigned to prepare and synthesise State financial statements. In addition, Hai Duong State Treasury supported units in registering accounts on the portal to submit to the State financial statements. At the same time, it requested accounting officials open monitoring books on Excel spreadsheets the list of units that must submit State financial statements for monitoring.

By the end of December, 353 level1-estimate units of Lai Chau State Treasury submitted State financial statements. Nguyen Ngoc Phong, Director of Lai Chau State Treasury said to achieve the results, since the beginning of the year it had sent dispatches on the preparation of the State financial statements to level 1- estimate units in the province.

In Son La province, 595 units are required to submit State financial statements to the State Treasury. A total 330 level 1- estimate units, 232 management agencies and 19 construction investment management boards submitted State financial statements to Son La State Treasury.

According to Director of Son La State Treasury Nguyen The Chat, to accomplish this task, Son La State Treasury requested district State Treasury units study guidance documents on preparing State financial statements and report to the Provincial People's Committee about the purposes, requirements, contents of preparing State financial statements in the province. Thereby, the Provincial People's Committee requested estimate units, management boards, tax and financial agencies to submit State financial statements to the State Treasury in a timely fashion.

Complex operational aspect

Although the State Treasury has made efforts to complete the State financial statements in 2018, this is a new task, so there are many problems.

Nguyen Duc Thai, Head of State Accounting Department of the Hai Duong State Treasury said 2019 was the first year the State Treasury system was assigned to prepare State financial statements for the fiscal year 2018. This task is not only new but also complex in terms of operational aspect.

“Accounting operation is the 'backbone' activity of the Treasury, but the State Treasury has only implemented budget accounting and management, monitoring and accounting of budget revenues and expenditures and financial resources assigned by the Government and the Ministry of Finance. The preparation of the State financial statement is more complex because in addition to reflecting budget information, it also reflects information outside the budget. Moreover, this information does not only stem from the Treasury system, but also from State agencies and units,” Thai said.

Thai said the most difficult thing in preparation of State financial statements is that financial agencies, relevant agencies and level 1-estimate units in the area have not paid much attention. Therefore, sometimes coordination between financial agencies and the State Treasury in implementation is not effective .

According to Nguyen Thi Hai, Deputy Director of Thai Binh State Treasury, another difficulty in preparing State financial statements is the computer skills of accounting officials of level 1- estimate units are still weak. Although the guidance dispatch was issued, the operation in registering accounts and summiting State financial statement is still confusing. Therefore, the quality of State financial statements have not meet requirements, so they must be returned many times and the submission of statements is still slow compared to regulations.

Support each estimate unit

From this situation, local State Treasuries have advised Provincial People's Committees on the purpose, meaning and importance of preparation of State financial statements. Specifically, the State Treasury advised the Provincial People's Committee to direct level 1-estimate units, departments and district People's Committees to implement this task.

When summarising State financial statements, the State Treasury in many localities discovered incorrect information they coordinated with financial agencies to summarise and review level 1-estimate units to update the system. For units that submitted State financial statements or their statements have errors, accounting officials took screenshots of the error to send these errors to units via email, helping units handle to resubmit statements to the State Treasury.

According to local State Treasuries, the State Treasury has coordinated with financial agencies to request units that submitted statements that are inconsistent with regulations on time and directly urge them by phone or document, and impose sanctions on stopping spending.

The entire State Treasury system has requested units that have not submitted State financial statements synthesise them. With this progress and the deployment of all treasury units, the State Treasury believes State financial statements will be prepared and submitted to the National Assembly in accordance with the plan.