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Period to assess the capacity of Hai Phong Customs Department on 9/3/2019. Photo: T. Binh

Exciting weekend

On Saturday, mid-March, we were present at Hai Phong Customs Department headquarters. Despite the holidays, in the early morning, a lot of civil servants gathered in formal dress for winter and autumn. Today began the evaluation of civil servants' capacity in one of the largest units in the industry.

Hai Phong Customs is the last of the 7 local customs departments to organize an independent assessment before the General Department of Customs organizes the guidance of the remaining 28 local customs departments to organize the evaluation simultaneously.

After a brief few minutes but solemn opening ceremony, the civil servant group entered the first review shift became the most exciting, suspenseful part. In this phase, Hai Phong Customs Department has 472 civil servants (not holding positions) to participate in assessing capacity according to 6 general content groups of the whole industry. Each shift has 50 civil servants with a time limit of 60 minutes (with a large number of civil servants, the capacity assessment at Hai Phong Customs takes place on 2 Saturdays and Sundays with 5 shifts / day).

At the assessment site on the 14th floor of the head office, the first participating civil servants are reviewing personal information on the guidelines before entering the assessment. In the room, the computer system is ready. Members of the Evaluation Council, the supervisory team of Hai Phong Customs Department and the supervisory force of the General Department of Customs, urgently guide civil servants to participate in the first assessment case. Although Hai Phong Customs has repeatedly organized examination and assessment of civil servant capacity, this is the first evaluation according to the general program of the whole industry, and many of the young civil servants expressed their anxieties. After the first 50 civil servants for the evaluation case settled down and focused on their work, outside the examination area, many leaders and civil servants focused on lively discussions. Others took advantage of returning to their office to continue their knowledge learning.

Deputy Director of Dinh Vu Port Border Gate Customs Sub-Department shared: In the daily work, the unit always pays attention and encourages a contingent of civil servants to self-study to improve their qualifications and for meeting their work tasks well. After grasping the capacity assessment schedule, the leaders of the Branch are interested in creating conditions for the civil servants in the evaluation to have time to review and prepare for the best results. These days, there are civil servants in the participating units, Branch leaders and team leaders, all assigned to be present at the Department's office to encourage and motivate, "fire up" the civil servants.

Officials of anti-smuggling prevention and handling violations of enlistment to practice knowledge. Photo: T. Binh.

Story of Practice and revision

We went to the Anti-Smuggling Department office and handled violation breaches. Although until the afternoon the department officials of anti-smuggling and handling new violations are on shift for evaluation, after the opening ceremony, most of the civil servants in the room stayed with the unit to review with a pile of documents on the table. Taking advantage of our exchange, Mrs. Bui Thi Mai Huong shared that the field of anti-smuggling and handling violations must approach many legal documents such as Customs Law, Law on Handling of Administrative Violations, and specialized Laws and lots of documents guiding the law. The over-the-counter content offered by the General Department of Customs is closely tied to the situations of daily work handling, but if there is no system and no full updates, it will be difficult to answer properly because there are so many mentioned situations. "Examination period will help us to have the system of adequate and scientific legal documents for advising and handling violations accurately and quickly, creating the conviction for ambushing violations by people for not affecting the import-export activities of the business community,”- Ms. Bui Mai Huong said.

Holding a book on the system of documents in the field of handling administrative violations to review, Mr. Luong Hong Phuc volunteered to share: "As the handling of violations related to the import of scraps is public opinion. All over the country, we not only have to firmly grasp the provisions of the Customs Law, the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations, but also have to update and system of regulations related to environmental law, system of standards and regulations related to this field to advise leaders at all levels in the process of handling violations.”

Mrs. Bui Thi Thu Thuy, civil servant of Team 2, Post-clearance Inspection Department confided: The awareness of this capacity assessment is very important to foster and supplement knowledge to serve the implementation of professional work well, so individuals focus on taking time to review and practice. At the same time, the head of the Sub-Department is also very encouraging, facilitating and guiding civil servants in updating and system of related knowledge.

Mrs. Thuy shared: “Team 2 performs the main tasks related to commodity codes. This is a difficult and very complicated field. Moreover, we often have to contact and inspect and work with FDI enterprises, which have large human resources and operating scale. Therefore, we are always conscious in addition to the trained knowledge we must always update, learn, equip ourselves with knowledge, especially policies on investment and trade laws ... to create a good impression of civil servants, a professional customs when working with the business community, contributing to reforming administrative procedures, attracting more foreign businesses to invest and do business in Hai Phong in particular, and in Vietnam in general.”

In order not to use up the civil servants’ valuable time, we returned to the examination area. Although the time of the first shift had not yet expired, some civil servants had already completed the content. Any public employee who stepped out of the room was immediately questioned by his colleagues. But the regular sentence we heard was: Did you do the test done well? Is the content difficult? Is the computer running smoothly? ... And looking at the happy faces of the civil servants who completed the first test partly answered the question.

We enlisted to exchange with civil servant, Mrs. Bui Bich Ngoc (Import-Export Tax Department) - one of the civil servants taking part in the first assessment case who completed the test early. Unable to hide her joy, Mrs Ngoc said her assessment was 93.5 / 100 points - one of the highest results in the first evaluation.

Mrs. Bui Bich Ngoc shared about the assessment content related to the field of tax debt management, tax accounting, tax enforcement ... "After reviewing the content, women in the room all spent extra time working to review and practice in groups and provide situations and answers from the rules of laws, decrees, circulars ... then compare with revision documents. This training method helps civil servants in the Department quickly access, the system, and understand the content related to their professional fields, so when entering the implementation of the inspection content, they can be very confident,”- said Ms. Ngoc talking about her own practice.

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According to Mrs. Bui Bich Ngoc, the most difficult thing is that you have to spend a lot of time relating to content about public service ethics. Because of many questions and situations with relatively similar answers, if they are not studied and practiced carefully, it will be easy to get confused.

With the careful preparation of Hai Phong Customs Department, close attention, guidance of the General Department of Customs, the capacity assessment at Hai Phong Customs Department has been successfully organized with many civil servants obtaining high results.