The National Assembly on June 10 discussed investments in Ring Road No 4 in the Hanoi capital region and the Ring Road No 3 in HCM City.

Truong Trong Nghia, a National Assembly from HCM City, stressed that the ring road in HCM City would remove  bottlenecks which have existed for many years, paving the way for economic development in the southeastern region.

Nghia offered suggestions to the draft of a resolution on the method of direct appointment of contractors. 

Under the draft, the Prime Minister considers and makes decisions on the direct appointment of contractors for consultancy, technical infrastructure relocation, and compensation for site clearance packages.

Nghia said that it would be better to change the content and allow the Prime Minister to authorize chairs of cities and provinces to consider and make decisions on the appointment of contractors during project implementation, applied to these packages.

He said that legally, once the Prime Minister authorizes leaders of localities to appoint contractors, the power is still in the Prime Minister’s hands. If the order and procedures for the authorization are clearly specified in accordance with the laws on bidding, there will be no concerns about the process.

“Municipal and provincial People’s Committees will work as authorized by Prime Minister in accordance with the laws on bidding. This will ensure a high level of law compliance,” Nghia said.

Nghia also suggested an amendment to another article in the draft resolution. The draft says during the project implementation process, if works arise that need appointment of contractors, the Government would report this to the National Assembly.

The regulation should be revised so that “if works arise that need appointment of contractors, chairs of people’s committees will report to the Prime Minister. If necessary, the government will report to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee for consideration and decision”.

“The National Assembly convenes once every six months. So, it would be better to report to the NA Standing Committee,” Nghia explained.

But, Nguyen Van Than, a deputy from Thai Binh, said that since these are very important projects, they must be regulated by the Prime Minister rather than decentralized to localities. He said that it is necessary to arrange capital for the two projects and seek prestigious international designers. This would facilitate project execution. 

Thanh said that there was no need to be too hasty in implementing the projects. If necessary, the execution deadline should be extended to have more time to research site clearance, design and consultancy. When choosing investors, it is necessary to consider private enterprises that can prove their capability in many projects recently implemented.

Hoang Van Cuong, a deputy from Hanoi, suggested there should be a special mechanism to exploit the land on the two sides of the ring roads.

“Just hearing the National Assembly discussing the ring road projects, the land prices in the projects’ areas have boiled up, which can show the great potential of creating resources from the land on the two sides of the roads,” he said.

If a reasonable mechanism is applied, the building of the two rings roads won’t require much money from the state, and new resources for the state budget would be created.

He asked the government to design a special mechanism to effectively exploit the potential of the land on the two sides of the roads.

Ta Thi Yen, a deputy from Dien Bien, stressed that when designing the two projects, it is necessary to pay attention to roads connecting to satellite urban areas, industrial production centers and transport routes.

She said that management and auction of land use rights, and planning and construction management need to be done very carefully to ensure compliance with the law.

The building of Belt Road No 2 in HCM City provides a lesson to be learned. The lack of capital and slow site clearance affected the project’s implementation.

Yen emphasized the need to pay attention to compensation for site clearance and resettlement.

“I think the Government needs to give guidance and directions for localities to apply reasonable compensation prices, thus creating favorable conditions for localities to settle the problems arising during site clearance,” she said. “It’s necessary to avoid the fact that people don’t have accommodations and don’t have land for cultivation and production.”

Tran Thuong - Thu Hang