Entrance to Nui Chua National Park

According to the Government Inspectorate, Ninh Thuan authorities made many mistakes in the implementation of the order and procedures for many dossiers of land allocation and land lease during the 2014-2018 period.

Some solar power projects used land belonging to irrigation projects, and some dossiers of land allocation and land lease did not include land-use demand appraisal documents.

The determination of prices for land assignment or lease was not in accordance with the legal process.

The responsibility to ask related parties to fulfill financial obligations was also not timely, resulting in debts of over VND27.4 billion. Without a plan to exploit the land fund, many plots of land acquired since 2015 are still vacant.

The Ninh Thuan Provincial People's Committee also made many mistakes in the establishment, appraisal, approval, and management of mineral exploitation activities.

Specifically, the province did not prepare and approve an auction plan for the right to exploit minerals for building material production in the province in 2017 and 2018. The specialized agency was late in advising the local authorities to approve the adjustment of the area that should not be up for bidding for mineral mining rights, according to the new criteria of Decree No. 158/2016/ND-CP dated 29/11/2016.

The Ninh Thuan Provincial People's Committee did not resolutely handle the cases of mine owners who had been licensed but delayed the mining, violating the provisions of the Mineral Law. As a result, the amount of debt from mineral exploitation licencing is up to VND138 billion.

In 2016, the Ninh Thuan Provincial People's Committee organized bidding of mining rights of two mines without the exploration reports.

The Government Inspectorate proposed to the Prime Minister to assign the Ninh Thuan Chairman to review the land auction plan, and re-determine the land rental price for the electricity resort project and the land use fees for the Northeast K1 New Urban Area K1 projects and Binh Son - Ninh Chu K2 Urban Area.

The conclusion of the Government Inspectorate also pointed out that the leaders of Ninh Thuan Provincial People's Committee were not determined in their direction and administration of grassroots construction investment projects. Departments, branches and localities failed to perform their responsibilities in offering advice and coordinating with each other, resulting in many shortcomings.

The shortcomings mentioned by the Government Inspectorate were related to the signing and implementation of construction contracts; the project review and acceptance tasks; the payment and settlement work; and the handover and put into use of projects which were slow, resulting in degradation of construction works.

All of the shortcomings led to the high costs of construction investment, waste, and losses to the state budget.

The Government Inspectorate proposed collecting over VND188 billion, which had been an inaccurate spending figure, for the Than River irrigation project (over VND11 billion), Nui Chua National Park (over VND600 million), Dinh river dam project (nearly VND720 million), and My Tan fishing port expansion project (over VND671 million).

In addition, more than VND28.3 billion must be collected from violations related to the approval of estimates and adjustment of construction contract value. Over VND8.9 billion must be collected when the project settlement is completed.

The Government Inspectorate said the main responsibility for the violations belongs to the Chairman and Vice Chairmen of the Ninh Thuan Provincial People's Committee. The agency proposed that the Government review the responsibilities of the local officials.

In addition, the directors of the local Departments of Planning - Investment, Construction, Finance, Transport, Agriculture - Development and Chairman and Vice Chairmen of the People's Committees of districts and cities in the province, as well as the project investors are also responsible.

Duc Thien

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