The information was released at a meeting between Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh and MHA September 16.

Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Bui Hoang Phuong said his ministry is having personnel problems at the Authority of Radio Frequency Management (ARFM) and Authority of Telecommunications.

Currently, many public employees at the two agencies have been undertaking work of civil servants for a long time. The ministry hopes that Binh will pay attention to the issue and give instructions on policies to allow public employees become civil servants.

In reply, Minister of MHA Pham Thi Thanh Tra said her ministry has reported to the Central Steering Committee on Personnel Management, so that the committee has an official report to the Politburo on the issue. The Politburo has assigned the Central Organizing Committee to find solutions to turn these officials into civil servants.

The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) is not alone. It is estimated that more than 7,000 public employees need to be converted to civil servants, including ones at the ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Transport (MOT) and Science and Technology (MST), and localities.

“Agencies are checking similar cases,” Tra said.

According to the deputy chair of the Government Office, Mai Thi Thu Van, some units which have the function of both state management and fee collection. MIC, for example, has ARFM; MOT has port authorities, Vietnam Register (VR), Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV), Vietnam Maritime Administration (Vinamarine); and MARD has the Department of Animal Health and Plant Protection Department (PPD).

The staff at the agencies are identified as public employees, but in fact, they are civil servants because they work for state management agencies.

Under the new regulation, all these units have to resume operations like normal state management agencies, not public non-business units.

“Will they receive salaries as civil servants or public employees if the authorities and departments no longer apply the specific regime and follow the financial scheme for public non-business units?” Van said.

Deputy Minister of MHA Truong Hai Long said the MHA has checked personnel and found that public employees must be civil servants.

However, this would affect the process of streamlining personnel (leading to increases in the number of state civil servants).

Thu Hang