HCM City (VNS/VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City should push forcompletion of programmes on flooding, pollution, traffic congestion and urbanrenovation, Tran Vinh Tuyen, Vice Chairman of the HCM City People’s Committee,said at a recent meeting.

Tuyen and the members of the steering boards of four city programmes metto discuss ongoing problems and ensure that programmes are completed on time.

The urban renovation and development programme is lagging behind schedule.The city was supposed to complete land clearance and compensation for 20,000households near and on the city’s canals, but so far only 1,860 households havebeen relocated, which is only 10 percent of the target.

The urban renovation programme also targets repairing or rebuilding 237out of 474 old apartment buildings (built before 1975), but only 132 apartmentshave been repaired and two  rebuilt.

Nguyen Ngoc Tuong, deputy chief of the city’s Traffic Safety Committee,said that although the number of traffic accidents in 2018 had declinedcompared to 2017, traffic congestion was still a problem throughout the city

Binh Chanh district has the highest rate of traffic accidents (20 percentof the total in the city), while district 9’s Nguyen Duy Trinh street alsosuffers greatly due to the abundance of large trucks.

Road enlargement and the rerouting of traffic near ports is alsoimportant, the district’s People’s Committee said.

Do Tan Long, head of the Steering Centre for the Urban Flood ControlProgramme’s Drainage System Management Division, said the city would push forcompletion of seven projects to tackle nine areas suffering from floods, andfor projects on four out of nine streets that are often flooded from hightides.

The city said it would invest 7.6 trillion VND (327.7 million USD) in218 projects this year. However, several projects are facing problems regardingland clearance and canal dredging.

Regarding the pollution programme, Nguyen Toan Thang, Director of the municipalDepartment of Natural Resources and Environment, said that four out of 16 setgoals have been met, and 10 are set to be done this year.

Eight of them are on schedule, but the remaining two are unlikely to bedone on time, he said.

One of them aims to have 80 percent of urban wastewater collected andprocessed before discharge, and another targets having 90 percent of industrialgas emissions processed properly.

The city is building three wastewater treatment facilities to raise theamount of collected water from 21 percent to 82 percent, but the facilitieswill not be able to operate by 2020.

Tuyen told the steering boards to push for the completion of theprogrammes, stressing that “funds need to be prioritised towards groundbreakingprojects”.

The Department of Justice was requested to examine the legality ofprojects, while the Department of Finance was instructed to conduct priceproject appraisals as soon as possible to prevent further delays.-VNS/VNA