Hanoi is facing difficulties realising the government's staff reduction policy because officials working at the city's state agencies are all well-qualified.

According to a report released last July by the municipal people's committee, over 300 staff working at the city's state agencies have doctorates while 4,000 others hold masters.

At a conference on implementing the staff reduction policy at local state agencies held on February  25, Deputy Secretary of Hanoi Party Committee, Ngo Thi Thanh Hang, admitted that this was a difficult task for Hanoi because the city has been employing highly-qualified staff, even those working at local wards departments also owns master and doctoral degrees.

 Deputy Secretary of Hanoi Party Committee, Ngo Thi Thanh Hang gave speech at a conference on implementing the staff reduction policy at local state agencies held on February  25 in Hanoi.

While leaders at state departments in many other localities are only high-school graduates; some in remote areas only know how to read and write, and the highly-qualified officials are a valuable asset that Hanoi can be proud of.

This is nothing strange because Hanoi is the capital, and political, cultural and economic centre of the country and so the city needed capable civil servants.

However, despite all of these supposed advantages, Hanoi has yet developed to the expectations of local people.

Why?

Deputy Secretary Ngo Thi Thanh Hang's speech at the conference gave a good explanation to the city's problems.

"The problem is about ability, their real working skills," Hang noted. "And more important, their attitude towards work. We should use these criteria to decide on staff cuts, not on their qualifications."

Hang's concerns are easy to understand, when, in an NA meeting in 2013, Deputy PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc complained that thirty per cent of State employees in the country were not needed, because they went to the office every day to simply fill their seat. Their poor performance did not bring any practical results and many of them have been found to use fake degrees to get their positions.

And another problem is explained by the city's former Party Secretary, Pham Quang Nghi, that Hanoi may have many talented employees but lacks a talented leader.

"It is very difficult to select someone purely based on their qualifications, as they all claim to be qualified," Nghi said.

Dtinews