Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong asked the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) to encourage the public to get involved in building the Party and strengthening the political system at the sixth conference of the front’s Central Committee in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho on January 4. 

He said the VFF needs to well perform its role as a supervisor and a provider of social feedback in Party units and local authorities, so as to fight bureaucracy, corruption, wastefulness and negative phenomena.

He added that he front’s chapters at all levels must renew working methods to meet the legitimate rights and aspirations of the people, contributing to strengthening close ties between the people and the Party and State. 

He highlighted the VFF and socio-political organisations’ responsibility for abiding by the resolution on Party building and rectification adopted by the fourth plenum of the 12th National Party Congress.

The Party chief said each official, cadre, Party member and VFF chapter must fully grasp the resolution’s significance to the survival of the Party and nation, thereby taking specific actions to fight moral degradation as well as expression of “self-transformation” and “self-evolution” within the Party. 

One of the most important tasks is continuing to build the great national unity with a high consensus on ideology and action, towards the common goal of maintaining national independence and sovereignty, socio-political stability and building an increasingly prosperous and civilised nation, he said. 

According to him, the VFF’s another crucial task is calling for public involvement in socio-economic development, including the campaign “All people stay united to build new-style rural areas and civilised urban areas” as well as national patriotic emulation drives. 

The VFF needs to call on the people to exercise thrift and pool more resources for economic and cultural development, ensuring social progress and fairness, he said. 

In his speech, President of the VFF Central Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan said the conference is due to review the VFF’s performance in 2016, adopt the VFF Central Committee’s action programme for 2017 and the VFF’s action plan for the implementation of the resolution on Party building and rectification. 

Participants will also sum up three-year implementation of the Party Central Committee’s Decision on the VFF and socio-political organisations’ social supervision and criticism regulations, among others. 

Last year, the VFF widely spread the campaigns “All people stay united to build new-style rural areas and civilised urban areas”, “Vietnamese prioritise using Vietnamese goods”, “Staying united and creative to improve output, quality, effectiveness and international integration”. 

The fund “For the Poor” raised 1.2 trillion VND (52.2 million USD) while businesses and organisations offered 3.46 trillion VND (150.4 million USD) in support of local social welfare programmes. 

Localities built and repaired 49,949 houses and provided help for hundreds of thousands of poor households. 

Humanitarian activities for the poor and disaster-stricken victims were also launched. 

As 2017 is the second year implementing the resolution of the 12th National Party Congress and the third year executing the resolution of the eighth Congress of the VFF and its chapters, the VFF and its chapters will focus on five key tasks, including raising public awareness of the power of the great national unity, tapping the people’s creativity and self-reliance spirit and launching national patriotic emulation campaigns, upholding democracy and protecting legitimate rights and interests of the people, fine-tuning mechanisms and improving the operating capacity of the VFF in the new period, and continuing to expand and improve the quality of people-to-people diplomacy. 

In conclusion, the Party leader asked the Party units and authorities to work closely with the VFF, and wished that more public feedback would be collected via the VFF, which will serve as a reference for the Party to refine its policies and guidelines. 

At the event, the VFF appointed more staff to its Presidium and Central Committee.

VNA