In the draft Law on Organization of Local Government (amended) recently sent to the Ministry of Justice for appraisal, the Ministry of Home Affairs asked for the Government's opinion on a number of key issues.
In particular, the Ministry of Home Affairs asked for the Government's opinion on handling the problems between the Law on Organization of Local Government and specialized laws when regulating the tasks and powers of local governments.
The draft law stipulates principles on the division of authority, decentralization, delegation and authorization to create initiative for local authorities in the spirit of "locality decides, locality acts, locality is responsible".
However, the Ministry of Home Affairs stated that in current specialized laws, there are many provisions that do not ensure consistency with the principles of decentralization, decentralization, and delegation of authority stipulated in the draft law.
A preliminary review shows that 142 laws stipulate the tasks and powers of government levels (People's Councils and People's Committees at provincial, district and communal levels), including some that are required to be performed by all three or two levels, with overlapping tasks and powers among local government levels.
To deal with this issue, the Ministry of Home Affairs included in the draft law a provision assigning the Government, based on the requirements and tasks of state management of sectors and fields in each period, to decide to adjust the tasks and powers of local authorities currently prescribed in specialized laws that are not consistent with the principles of delimitation of authority, decentralization, and powers of local authorities in the Law on Organization of Local Government (amended).
In addition, the drafting agency also proposed to add specific regulations on the principle of decentralization in the direction that the decentralizing agency is responsible for ensuring financial conditions, human resources and necessary conditions to perform the decentralized task.
The decentralized agency is fully responsible for performing the decentralized tasks and powers if the decentralized agency has ensured the conditions for implementation.
Agencies proactively decentralize in implementation based on the new principles of decentralization stipulated in the Law on Organization of the Government (amended) and the Law on Organization of Local Government (amended).
Previously, as Lao Dong reported, also in the draft Law on Organization of Local Government (amended), the Ministry of Home Affairs emphasized the viewpoint that the promulgation of the law aims to ensure unity and synchronization with the "revolution" of streamlining the organization and apparatus of the political system from the central to the grassroots levels.
In this revision, the local government model is designed to "resolutely eliminate intermediate organizations" while promoting the positive results of urban government in recent times.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has asked for the Government's opinion on the local government model proposed in the draft law.
