Assessing the arrangement of provincial-level administrative units in 2025, delegate Nguyen Huu Thong (Binh Thuan delegation) said that the past 50 years of practice show that the process of separating administrative units has contributed to serving security, politics and local management goals.
However, up to now, this dispersed organizational model has gradually revealed shortcomings, with some provinces having small scale and low population not meeting standards, leading to scattered development space, making it difficult to form key economic regions and scattered investment.
The administrative apparatus in many places is cumbersome, with large regular expenditures, accounting for 70% of total budget expenditures, limiting investment resources for development. Therefore, the policy of arranging provinces and cities is a major policy decision, both strategic and effective, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of governance and reorganizing development space.
This is an opportunity to comprehensively restructure the regional development model, reallocate population, infrastructure, and investment resources according to a new strategic orientation, contributing to the success of rapid and sustainable development goals.
The delegate cited the merger of Binh Duong, Ba Ria - Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City as creating a strong economic development space, which can be compared to Shanghai.
To successfully complete the merger process, delegates recommended that the National Assembly, the Government and relevant ministries and branches soon complete the legal institutions, in line with the 2-level local model, and have a specific organizational mechanism for the new provinces in the transition period.
Next, promptly resolve policies for cadres, civil servants, public employees, and workers who quit their jobs; have retrainage policies, and support travel for cadres and civil servants who have to move to new workplaces.
Delegate Nguyen Thi Thu Ha (Quang Ninh Delegation) said that, given the great significance of the project, the delegate expressed her feelings as well as the National Assembly delegates when they were given a very sacred task, which was to press the button to pass the Resolution on the arrangement of provincial-level administrative units.
"The resolution that I believe many generations will still recognize our work today," the delegate shared.
During the implementation process, the delegate mentioned the issue of handling surplus administrative headquarters. The handling of these headquarters needs to be clearly regulated soon regarding authority, reuse plans, conversion of functions or auction, to avoid waste or abandonment.
Next is the arrangement of the apparatus, arranging the team of cadres, civil servants, and public employees. The total number of employees of 52 provinces and cities subject to arrangement is 447,657 people.
The delegate said that this is a very large force. Therefore, the transfer and assignment must comply with regulations, be consistent with the situation, reasonable, and appropriate, create consensus, and ensure regimes and policies for cadres, civil servants, public employees, and non-professional workers.
"It is necessary to pay attention to speeding up the progress of salary policy reform after the merger. Because the workload has increased, the scope of management is wider, and the responsibility for commune-level cadres and civil servants is greater," the delegate suggested.
The delegate also said that the team of non-professional workers at the commune level who are directly affected by the arrangement and merger of administrative units need to have clear, stable policies and a suitable transition roadmap, demonstrating humanistic concern in the process of reform.
