NA Vice Chair urges transparency in disbursement of public investment capital

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, Dang Huy Dong, speaks at the session

Hien made the remark during an explanation session held in Hanoi, on October 2, on the implementation of the Law on Public Investment and the medium-term public investment plan for the period of 2016-2020.

He stated that the promulgation of the Law on Public Investment and the medium-term public investment plan (2016-2020) is a significant step in the efforts to create a consistent and synchronised legal corridor, enhance the efficiency of public investment and prevent over-diversification, discretion and subjectivity in public investment.

He insisted on the clarification of the responsibilities of the Government, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, and certain other ministries and sectors in managing public investment, as well as the serious implementation of the Public Investment Law and resolutions issued by the NA and the NA Standing Committee.

Before beginning to amend the Law on Public Investment, the Government should review its circulars to identify the issues that are not yet in accordance with the Law, in order to make appropriate adjustments.

During the explanation session, the NA deputies focused on clarifying the obstacles and shortcomings in the disbursement process of public investment plan capital, whilst discussing the necessary measures to address the reasons for the delays in the disbursement of the medium-term public investment plan capital.

The Law on Public Investment was passed by the 13^th National Assembly in June 2014. After three years of implementation, the Law has helped to prevent discretion and subjectivity in deciding the investment plans, and decentralise ministries, sectors and localities in deciding the investment plans.

However, there remain a number of limitations in the implementation of the 2016-2020 medium-term public investment plan, as the ability to balance the state budget for development investment is very low in comparison to the demand of ministries, sectors and localities, accounting for just 25% of the total expenditure of the State budget.

The 2016-2020 plan only satisfies approximately 53% of the investment capital demand from the State budget for the 21 target programmes which have been approved by the Government.