At a meeting on April 16, HCM City authorities reported that the city’s GDP growth in the first quarter of the year was only 0.7 percent compared to the first quarter last year. 

HCM City Mayor Phan Van Mai admitted that many civil servants at city agencies are "apprehensive of responsibility, afraid of making mistakes and not active and creative in implementing tasks", while departments and branches are "slow and not cooperative" in implementing their tasks.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung pointed out that HCM City’s civil servants don’t have a high sense of responsibility. 

In 2022, HCM City sent 584 documents with questions to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), and MPI had to give answers in 604 documents. The noteworthy point was that most of the content of the questions were within the competence of the municipal authorities.

This indicates a problem: agencies, departments and agencies pass the buck to each other and don’t cooperate to implement the tasks assigned to them.

“There are two problems the city needs to solve –  market confidence, social sentiments, and the civil servants' fear of responsibility. If the problems can’t be solved promptly, HCM City won’t be able to make a breakthrough in the upcoming quarters,” Dung said.

The problem is that the fear of responsibility is not just a disease in HCM City.

The same is occurring in Hanoi. At the fourth session of the Government's Steering Committee for Administrative Reform held on April 19, Hanoi Mayor Tran Sy Thanh said that many civil servants remain reluctant to give advice and suggest solutions to higher authorities to solve problems, because they "play it safe" and try to keep their jobs at any cost. 

They remain passive in making decisions within their jurisdictions, or "pass the buck" to other divisions or ministries to avoid responsibility. 

As a result, state agencies need a lot of time to handle work, thus reducing the effectiveness of administration at different levels; and eroding businesses' confidence in state agencies, and adversely affecting the implementation of tasks on socio-economic development.  

The fear of responsibility has become so intense that civil servants would prefer to not properly implement their tasks and exercise their rights as stipulated by laws, rather than do things that require creativity and breakthroughs. 

Meanwhile, investment projects, public and private, have stalled; people’s urgent needs cannot be satisfied, and urgent needs in capital, land and energy markets await drastic and reasonable solutions.

Action

The Prime Minister’s telegram stipulated very clearly: agencies must not transfer work falling under their authority to other agencies; must not handle work that is within the jurisdiction of other agencies. 

If the agencies consulted do not reply within the prescribed time, this will be understood that they agreed with the suggestions by the agencies that made the suggestions and they will be responsible before the laws, the government, and the Prime Minister.

The content in the telegram shows the spirit of the Prime Minister. A decree on protecting civil servants who "dare to think and dare to do" is hoped to be issued soon in order to eliminate the fear of responsibility which exists in many agencies.

The Prime Minister’s instructions in the telegram and many other documents and speeches at conferences are consistent with the 13th Party Congress’ documents which say Vietnam needs to build a contingent of staff who dare to think, dare to speak out, dare to do, dare to take responsibility. dare to innovate, dare to cope with difficulties and dare to act for common interests; and with the Politburo’s Conclusion 14/2021 on the encouragement and protection of civil servants who are dynamic and creative for the common good.

Vietnam is striving for 6.5 percent of a GDP growth rate this year. As the growth rate in the first quarter was low, it must be 6.7 percent for the second quarter, 7.5 percent for the third and 7.9 percent for the fourth quarter to reach the annual goal of 6.5 percent.

However, 7.5 and 7.9 percent are high, which have not been reached since 2010, except for the third quarter of 2022.

Therefore, GDP growth should be used as a ruler that assesses the capability and management efficiency of local leaders, because if they don’t dare to act to help remove difficulties for enterprises, there won’t be a driving force to obtain high growth rates.

Tu Giang