On the afternoon of October 16, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh chaired a direct and online meeting with leaders of a number of ministries, branches and localities on handling difficulties in the process of guiding the implementation of the arrangement of administrative units at the district and commune levels in the 2023-2025 period.
At the meeting, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Tran Quoc Phuong said that the Ministry has sent a document to the People's Committees of provinces and centrally run cities requesting to synthesize funding needs from the central budget to support basic construction investment to serve the arrangement of administrative units of localities in the period 2023-2025.
To date, 54/63 provinces and centrally-run cities have sent documents to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
Most reports from localities request one-time support from the central budget according to the standard for support for district and commune-level administrative units reduced after rearrangement according to regulations.
The total budget from the central budget needed to support the implementation of administrative unit arrangement of localities is 281.5 billion VND for 36 localities.
Of which, the budget for implementing the arrangement of district-level administrative units is 140 billion VND, corresponding to the reduction of 7 district-level administrative units; the budget for implementing the arrangement of commune-level administrative units is 141.5 billion VND, corresponding to the reduction of 283 commune-level administrative units.
The current difficulties and problems of localities are that the capital source of the medium-term public investment plan for the period 2021-2025 of localities has been fully allocated to specific tasks and projects.
According to local reports, the support capital is mainly for renovating and repairing infrastructure, upgrading assets and equipment.
The level of support funding from the central budget for each administrative unit at district and commune levels according to regulations is still limited and will not meet actual spending needs.
Currently, after merging administrative units, many localities are facing difficulties in balancing funding sources to renovate infrastructure, repair commune-level People's Committee headquarters after the rearrangement, as well as handling the issue of job placement and policies for redundant civil servants after reducing the number of commune-level administrative units.
Some localities (including localities with budget autonomy, not eligible for support from the central budget) have difficulty balancing their budgets, mainly due to difficult budget collection conditions, especially difficulties in land use revenue, leading to a lack of funds to implement and adjust master plans.
At the meeting, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh gave opinions and instructions on each content and task for the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Ministry of Finance and a number of relevant ministries and branches in removing difficulties, providing detailed instructions to localities on procedures, arranging funding sources to support the implementation of administrative unit arrangement, ensuring compliance with legal regulations on budget.
