The Ministry of Finance asks for monthly fixed-price public carsreport

Illustration. Source: Internet

Besides, Minister DinhTien Dung also asked to review the overall number of existing drivers from related units to arrange, or be rearranged, especially the drivers ofpublic officialswho receive fixed-price public cars,to not recruit new drivers, decrease the number of existing drivers, and dispatchthem from the surplus to the deficit, graduallytransferring the drivers of public officialsreceiving fixed-price public carsto serve for general work, or arrange them for other suitable jobs.

Regarding the number of vehicles, the Minister requiresto urgently build a plan to organize, arrange and handle the number of vehicles to ensure the principle of thrift and efficiency.

The Financial Planning Department will preside, in collaboration with the Ministry’s Office as well as the relevant units, to monitor the implementation of thefixed-price issueto report and evaluate on the effectiveness of this regulation. On that basis, advise and propose to expand the scope and application objects for fixed-price public cars as well as propose the solutions to ensure the implementation in the spirit of saving and being more efficient.

As the Customs Newspaper previously reported, the Minister of Finance issued Decision No. 1997/QĐ-BTC providing the fixed-price public cars regimefrom home to work for the titles of Deputy Minister; leadership position with allowances coefficient of 1.25 (Director General and equivalent) under the Ministry of Finance.

The fixed-rate for daily transporting officers from home to work is determined by unitfixed-price (vnd/km) x number of fixed km x 2 timesx number of working days of the month.

Among them: The unit fixed-priceis determined by the market popular taxis unit price (category 4 seats); the fixed-km number is the actual distance from home to work; the timesfor daily transporting from home to work are two (arrival and departure); the number of monthly working days is stipulated by the Labor Code (22 days).

Implementing the Decision of the Minister, from the 3^rd of October2016, the Deputy Minister of Finance, said leadership titles with the allowance coefficient of 1,25 are General Director of the General Department of Taxation, General Director of the General Department of Customs, Chairman of the State Securities Commission etc. havecommuted by private cars, and taxis. The pilot to carry the fixed-price public carsout of the Ministry of Finance has been highlyappreciated by public opinion.

Talking to the press not long ago aboutthis regulation, Mr. Tran DucThang - Director of the Public Assets Management Department, the Ministry of Finance said, the fixed-price public cars mechanism has been applied for a long time but so far, the fixed-price issue is still only on the spirit of volunteering, receiving this mechanism are the ones who could arrange for themselves convenient transportations,it is not mandatory.

The Ministry of Finance is the first agency to issue a decision to apply fixed-price public cars for the titles of Deputy Minister, Director General or equivalent.Since being in a transitional period, and this is the first step, so that the implementation needscaution. After a period of implementation, the Ministry of Finance will re-assess the reasonable levelof this mechanism to adjust or expand.

Besides, the fixed-price public car is synonymous with reducing the number of cars and drivers. This takes a certain time to calculate and cannot be immediately "dissolved".

Sharing more about the orientation of expanding the fixed-price application subjects with the titles, the representative of the Ministry of Finance said that the implementation needed a roadmap rather than simultaneously applying across the country due to area and local conditions, the development of private vehicles, public transport and particularly the ability to ensure security and safety for those in leadership positions.

However, the Public Assets Management Department has also been researching the replication of the fixed-price public cars and calculatinghow to be suitable. Deadline is when the building Decree guiding the Law on Public Assets (estimated to be passed by the National Assembly in May, 2017 and to be effective from the 1^st January, 2018), then this agency will propose specific mechanisms for this content.