VietNamNet Bridge – As of October 3, six deputy ministers and five chiefs of departments at the Ministry of Finance had travelled to their offices by taxi or their own cars.

Deputy Finance Minister Do Hoang Anh Tuan will take a taxi to the office.

The Ministry of Finance is a pioneer in cutting budget spending for transport expenditures for high ranking officials.

The state budget currently has to pay a huge amount of money to maintain tens of thousands of public cars and drivers to serve senior officials of state agencies. 

To cut spending, the Finance Ministry has applied a new policy: paying monthly transport fees for deputy ministers and chiefs of departments.

Accordingly, these officials are no longer taken to the office by public cars. They can use the granted monthly transport fees to catch a taxi or to driver their private cars to go to the office.

Public cars with blue number plates.

The monthly transport fees are from VND3.96 million to VND9.9 million ($150 - $450)/month/person.

However, some said that this policy is not very effective as these officials have to travel a lot, from their offices to other places to attend meetings and events, and in such cases, these officials will still use public cars.

They suggested monthly transport fees for officials for all trips, not only for the distance from their home to the office.

Tran Cham