A component project of the North-South Expressway under construction. Speeding up the disbursement of public investment is expected to drive economic growth after the pandemic. (Photo: VNA) Thiswas a bold effort raised after the disappointing results of publicinvestment disbursement in the first months of this year, especially offoreign-sourced capital.
Theworking groups would be in charge of identifying difficulties and problems inthe implementation of public-invested projects, especially projects whichuse official development assistance (ODA) and concessional loans fromforeign donors at ministries, central-level agencies and localities andrecommending solutions to accelerate the disbursement of public investment andincrease capital use efficiency.
Thelatest updates from the Ministry of Finance showed that the disbursement ofpublic investment was estimated at 18.48 percent in January - April, slightlylower than the rate of 18.65 percent of the same period last year.
Notably,the disbursement of foreign-sourced capital was at only 3.25 percent whiledomestic-sourced at 19.57 percent.
Sevenministries and eight localities had a disbursement rate of more than 25 percent,including the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (91.12 percent), VietnamDevelopment Bank (59.64 percent), the Vietnam Fatherland Front CentralCommittee (48.86 percent), the State Bank of Vietnam (35.76 percent), Binh Thuanprovince (33.9 percent) and Phu Tho province (33.4 percent).
Forty-threeout of 51 ministries and central-level agencies and 28 out of 63 provinces andcities had disbursement rates below 17 percent.
Theministry pointed out that the slow disbursement of public investment was due tothe lack of determination and drastic measures in implementing public-investedprojects, some faced problems in land clearance and selecting contractors whilethe skyrocketing prices of construction materials also caused delays inimplementation.
Theministry’s statistics also revealed that twelve ministries and central-levelagencies and 21 provinces and cities had not completed the capital allocationplan.
Tospeed up public investment disbursement, the Ministry of Finance asked for thecooperation of the Ministry of Planning and Investment to transfer thecapital which had not been allocated as of the end of March to ministries,agencies and localities with ongoing projects which had demand for capital.
DeputyMinister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong said that the disbursementof public investment was often strengthened in the two last quarters of theyear.
Simplifyingadministrative procedures would also help speed up public investmentdisbursement.
Specifically,the State Treasury shortened the capital settlement time from four days to onefor the advance and payment of 80 percent of the completed volume. Otherpayments would be made within three working days.
Accordingto the ministry, the focus would be placed on enhancing the accountability ofthe heads in implementing public-invested projects. In addition, the problemsrelated to land clearance and resources must also be tackled.
Speedingup the disbursement of public investment was expected to create spillovereffects to accelerate the post-pandemic economic growth.
Thedisbursement rates reached 91 percent in 2020 and 93 percent in 2021./.
VNA
