VietNamNet Bridge – The management of state budget spending in Vietnam has encountered strong criticism from many National Assembly delegates.

Delegate Vo Thi Dung, representing Ho Chi Minh City, last week cited the resettlement project for the Son La hydropower plant in northwestern Son La Province as a typical example of the state’s “wasted investment”.

“There have been two resettlement areas worth total $2.9 million. However, only six households currently live in one of these two areas, while the number of households earlier registering to live here is 140,” Dung said. “It is because the areas are inconvenient in traffic and have no public works like schools and hospitals.”

“We are really anxious about the way the state budget is being used, amid the country’s ever-increasing difficulties,” she said.

Under the government’s report on budget for 2011 tabled for discussion at the National Assembly last week, while nearly $34.9 billion was earlier estimated to be spent, the actual amount spent reached nearly $37.86 billion, up 8.5 per cent, including an increase of $2.7 billion in development spending like that for the Son La resettlement areas.

All expenditures from the central and local levels also ascended, at $129.8 million and $2.85 billion, respectively, as compared to initial estimates.

The State Treasury also discovered a sum of $14.5 million miss-spent on 48,500 activities.

“Never have I seen such a nation home to big laxness in state budget management as Vietnam, where spending is often twice higher than initial estimates,” said delegate Tran Du Lich also representing Ho Chi Minh City.

“Under the State Audit of Vietnam’s report on state budget auditing results for 2011, 23 out of 28 audited localities violated spending regulations, while the government has been tightening its belt to save money,” Lich said.

Meanwhile, delegate Nguyen Ngoc Hoa, also from Ho Chi Minh City, added that state money was used wastefully and ineffectively.

“In some provinces, a locality is home to the simultaneous implementation of many state-funded programmes about poverty reduction, forestry plantation, new rural development, clean water, environmental protection, and vocational training, while this locality’s capacity in implementing these programmes is very weak. Consequently, these programmes have come nowhere though they were begun several years ago,” Hoa said.

According to Nguyen Duc Kien, vice chairman of the National Assembly Economic Committee, said the budget disciplines had over the past years failed to be obeyed by ministries and localities.

“This issue has been repeatedly raised during National Assembly sessions, but the situation remains unchanged. This has prevented the government from implementing its public investment restructuring,” Kien said.

Dung also frankly pointed out some mistakes in state budget management. “For example, while the Law on Social Insurance bans the government from borrowing loans from social insurance funds, the government’s debts from these funds augmented 34.5 per cent in 2011, against 2010,” she said.

The government reported that ministries and agencies at central and local levels punished 226 units and individuals in 2011 for violating budgetary regulations.

Source: VIR