The Office of the People's Committee of Ha Nam province has just issued a document, publicly announcing overdue records in September 2024 on the Ha Nam province's administrative procedure settlement information system.
Notably, among the list of agencies, officials and leaders named this time, the Ha Nam Department of Justice had the highest number of delays in processing records on the Public Service Portal.
Of which, Mr. Ngo Duc Mau - Department of Administrative Justice was late 33 times. And at the top of the list is Mr. Bui Duc Thai - Director of Department of Justice Ha Nam, late 130 times - accumulated from the beginning of 2024 until now.
These figures show how inadequate and stagnant administrative procedures are in Ha Nam, especially in the judicial sector.
It is worth mentioning that the inadequacy and stagnation, shown through the fact that agencies, officials, and leaders delay or "soak" people's files like in Ha Nam, is quite common in many localities in recent times.
The practice of "naming and shaming" - publicly revealing the identities of units, officials, and leaders so that "the whole village knows" as in Ha Nam has also been applied in many localities.
Even in many localities, such as Da Lat (Lam Dong), Dong Thap, Quang Ngai, Nam Dinh... local leaders either directly or send letters to apologize to people for the delay in handling administrative procedures related to land, causing inconvenience, wasting people's money and effort.
From publicly naming and shaming agencies, officials, and leaders who are slow, to local leaders apologizing to their people in many forms, these are very important steps forward in communication between the people and local government apparatus.
This shows a change in the mindset of leaders. They have started to care about the voice and interests of the people instead of maintaining a one-way communication attitude like before.
However, apologies and disclosures are only the first step. To truly create change, stronger measures and clear sanctions are needed to deal with offending officials.
Because only when employees feel responsible and under real pressure for their actions will they be motivated to improve their work.
The reason why people's files are "soaked" is usually due to two main reasons: One is because officials "soak" them to harass, extort, and demand "grease" fees. The other is because of poor work handling capacity, not being able to resolve issues in a timely manner.
Both of these reasons are unacceptable. For such behavior, naming and apologizing is not enough, but there must be more severe forms of handling such as discipline, even removal from the system if necessary.
Otherwise, publicity and deterrence are only formal and perfunctory, and have no real impact in changing the behavior of civil servants!
