Voters’ requests receive timely responses: Ombudsman’s report

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Speaking at the NA plenary meeting on November 15, Hai said between the 10th and 11th session of the 13th NA, deputies held 823 meetings with voters and gathered 2,613 questions and proposals, which were then summarised into 914 requests, reported Hai, adding that as of September 30, agencies had sent 914 answers to voters.

The queries focused on a wide range of issues, including agriculture, employment, social security, culture, education, health care, production, business, transportation, construction, the environment, the completion of legal system and the operation of State agencies.

Head of the NA Ombudsman Committee Nguyen Thanh Hai.

In legislation, the NA has included several laws in its law-making programme at the request of voters, including the Planning Law, the Law on State Compensation, the Law on Association, the Tourism Law, and the Law on Belief and Religion, said the report.

The NA was also active in supervision activities by listening to voters’ requests and settling urgent problems.

However, in some cases, NA agencies have yet to fully absorb the opinions of voters during the assessment of some laws, while failing to effectively exploit their ideas during the building of laws as well as in supervision activities, the report pointed out.

After the 11th session of the 13th NA, the Government and Cabinet members worked hard to respond to voters’ questions, with 100 percent of queries answered, much higher than the 65.67 percent in the previous session, according to the report.

At the same time, the ratio of requests settled through adjustments and supplementations of policies, laws or inspection and handling of violations reached 20.56 percent, rising from 19.09 percent in the previous session.

Voters’ ideas helped ministries and sectors issue 109 legal documents, contributing to the completion of the legal system and improving State management.

However, a number of newly-issued legal documents are poor quality, including a decree guiding the implementation of the Health Insurance Law, and a decree on the management of snowball selling. Particularly, some documents went against the law, including a circular on administrative complaint settlement, the report said, adding that it has been adjusted.

The report also proposed that ministries and agencies submit specific plans to deal with 142 requests of voters left over from previous NA sessions.

They were asked to pay special attention to solving major issues of voters’ concern, including the stability of plans for high-school graduation and university entrance exams, law violations in snowball selling, the building of agricultural products’ trademark, support to farmers and policies to attract investment to agriculture, and the management and settlement of violations in the exploitation of natural resources and forest destruction.