Government sets up 5 groups to monitor public investment disbursement

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh signed a directive establishing five task forces to be led by Deputy Prime Ministers Le Minh Khai, Tran Hong Ha, and Tran Luu Quang, as well as Finance Minister Ho Duc Phuc and Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung.

According to the directive, the task forces will investigate and remove obstacles to spending public investment funds in ministries, departments, and central and local agencies that have disbursement rates below the national average for this year.

They will analyze the causes of the obstacles encountered in the execution of public investment projects, especially those that use ODA and concessional loans from foreign donors in agencies under their supervision.

In the course of the inspections, the working groups will evaluate the effectiveness in the formulation and allocation of public investment plans charged to the State Budget for 2023 while examining the responsibilities of the heads of ministries, agencies, provinces, and cities regarding its performance in the disbursement of public funds.

Based on their findings, the five working groups will recommend solutions and report back to the Prime Minister to speed up the disbursement of public investment funds.

Public investment capital for 2023 totalled over VND 700 trillion (US$ 29.85 billion in 2023, VND 140 trillion higher than the plan in 2022 and VND 260 trillion higher than 2021.

The Government has doubled efforts in accelerating disbursement of public investment since the beginning of this year after missing its target in 2022.

On February 21, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chaired a national teleconference to seek ways to step up public investment allocation and disbursement in 2023 as well as the socio-economic recovery and development program. 

The Government chief tasked subordinate to rate the disbursement rate to at least 95 per cent of the total public capital planned for this year.

Public investment disbursement in the first two months of this year reached nearly VND49 trillion or 6.55 percent of the initial whole-year plan, according to the Ministry of Finance.

As many as 50 out of 52 ministries and central agencies and 19 out of 63 localities had their disbursement rates less than 5 percent.

Slow disbursement was mainly due difficulties arising in land acquisition, building of resettlement areas, compensation, poor planning, rising input material prices and transportation costs. 

In addition, many contractors hesitated to undertake projects and were awaiting instructions for additional capital to come through due to the rise in the price of materials.