1 birth certificate, going through 5-6 agencies
General Secretary To Lam pointed out the fact that 70% of the State budget is still used to pay salaries, regular expenses, and serve the operation of the apparatus. This means that only 30% of resources are left for investment in development, national defense, security, hunger eradication, poverty reduction, and social security.
"The reason why we cannot increase salaries is because if we increase salaries, the budget for salary payments will increase by 80-90%, leaving no budget for other activities" - General Secretary To Lam emphasized.
Therefore, the General Secretary suggested that it is necessary to look at the reality to continue streamlining the apparatus, reducing staff, and reducing regular expenditures to reserve resources for development investment.
Citing the story of a birth certificate that involved 5-6 agencies, involving health, justice, and police, causing people to spend weeks to ten days to complete, General Secretary To Lam asked: "Why not do the procedures right at the health station so that when people take their children home, they have all the necessary documents? Would people be happy like that?" and acknowledged that streamlining the apparatus must start with very specific, very detailed, and very practical things.
Reasonable reduction of the number of ministries and ministerial-level agencies
In a recent Government report summarizing the implementation of the Law on Government Organization (GOU) 2015 (amended and supplemented in 2019), Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that there are still many issues regarding the organization and operation model of the Government that need to be resolved to meet development requirements in the new period.
Notably, the Government apparatus, despite many innovations, is still not truly streamlined. The Government's organizational model of 22 ministries and ministerial-level agencies, which has been maintained stably over four terms, continues to reveal unreasonable points in response to the requirements of development and innovation.
The internal organizational structure of ministries and branches is still not really compact. The confusion of the function of formulating legal policies and the function of enforcing laws in the State administrative apparatus leads to a situation of "both playing football and blowing the whistle" that is difficult to overcome.
The current context requires a truly developmental Government, with clear mandates, functions, and authority, a streamlined apparatus, and effective operations. At the same time, it is necessary to implement a roadmap to reasonably reduce the number of ministries and ministerial-level agencies; strengthen the role and enhance the responsibility of ministers as members of the Government in macro-management and policy making.
The Minister of Home Affairs accordingly stated the need to continue implementing the Party's policy on promoting the effectiveness of the multi-sectoral, multi-field management model; implementing a roadmap to reasonably reduce the number of ministries and ministerial-level agencies. And recommended that the Government submit to the National Assembly the amendment and supplement to the 2015 Law on TCCP (amended and supplemented in 2019).
In the Resolution of the regular Government meeting in October 2024, which was just issued, the Government also directed ministries, ministerial-level agencies, and agencies to urgently summarize 7 years of implementing Resolution 18; develop a plan to arrange and restructure the apparatus towards a multi-sectoral, multi-field ministry, reduce internal organization, ensure streamlining, efficiency, effectiveness, and efficiency. This work needs to be completed in December. The Government also assigned the Ministry of Home Affairs to urgently propose the establishment of a Steering Committee and a Working Group on streamlining the Government apparatus, and report to the Prime Minister before November 20.
Drastically cut down, even eliminate
Regarding the issue of streamlining the apparatus, Dr. Vu Trung Kien (Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics) acknowledged that an effective and efficient apparatus does not necessarily require the Central Government to have any agency, but must have such an agency at the provincial and district levels. It is necessary to drastically cut down, or even eliminate, agencies and units that overlap in functions and tasks.
Consider comprehensively amending the Law on Government Organization
When appraising the proposal to develop a Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Public Security, Deputy Minister of Justice Dang Hoang Oanh assessed that the amendment and supplement of the law meets the urgent requirements set forth by practical life and the strong direction of the Party and State leaders in general and General Secretary To Lam in particular in arranging a streamlined, strong, efficient, effective and efficient apparatus. However, the drafting agency needs to clearly explain and give specific examples of the difficulties and shortcomings in the implementation of the law to further deepen the need to amend and supplement the law; at the same time, consider comprehensively amending the Law on Public Security to meet the requirements set forth in the work of organizing the apparatus.
Reduce 17 general departments and equivalent
Through the arrangement and consolidation of the organizational apparatus of ministries, ministerial-level agencies, and government agencies, up to now, 17 General Departments and organizations equivalent to General Departments have been reduced; 10 Departments have been reduced; 145 Departments/Boards under General Departments and ministries have been reduced; and the number of divisions within departments has been basically reduced.
