Need more specific mechanism
According to current regulations, units using the budget to purchase goods worth over VND100 million must bid. Recently, the National Assembly voted to pass the revised Law on Bidding, increasing the bid designation limit to VND300 million. This regulation will take effect from January 15, 2025.
Raising the limit on bidding helps to make purchasing goods faster. However, according to experts, this limit increase is a general regulation for goods purchasing packages, not just for newspaper purchases. Therefore, the solution does not fundamentally solve the difficulties that the press encounters in publishing printed newspapers.
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Dr. Vu Dinh Anh - economic expert - said that in recent times, our country has had many reforms and efforts to improve the bidding process to ensure transparency, fairness and efficiency.
However, the bidding process is still complicated and cumbersome, requiring participants to comply with many regulations and procedures. This can increase the cost and time of participating in bidding. Meanwhile, the press, especially print newspapers, is currently facing difficulties in maintaining. "To avoid difficulties for press agencies in selling their products, I propose that the bidding form can be changed to designated bidding for orders to buy printed newspapers to shorten the time and cumbersome procedures, so that the press can perform well in information and propaganda work, serving political tasks" - Dr. Vu Dinh Anh suggested.
Add a mechanism to get newspapers to readers as quickly as possible
Lawyer Nguyen Thu Trang - Heva LLC Law Firm, Hanoi Bar Association - said that the press plays an extremely important role. This has been shown in the Press Law 2016, which stipulates that the press is an essential means of information for social life; is the mouthpiece of Party agencies, State agencies, socio-political organizations, socio-political-professional organizations, social organizations, socio-professional organizations; and is a forum for the people.
Thus, the law clearly stipulates that the press is an essential form. As an essential form, it is necessary to ensure that people have the fastest access to the press. However, in reality, many units still apply bidding methods for printing newspapers. Because the application of bidding methods takes a lot of time and the procedures are cumbersome, many newspapers have been printed for a long time but are slow to reach readers, losing their topicality.
Lawyer Nguyen Thu Trang analyzed, Article 5 of the Press Law stipulates that the State's policy on press development is to order press to serve political, security, national defense, foreign information tasks, serve teenagers, children, the deaf, the blind, ethnic minorities, areas with especially difficult socio-economic conditions, remote areas, mountainous areas, border areas, islands and other important tasks suitable for each stage according to the Prime Minister's decision.
Although there are regulations on ordering, in reality, many units are still hesitant to order newspapers. Units still only "safely" bid for packages within the limit. This is because the Bidding Law does not have detailed regulations on newspaper purchasing. Therefore, to best meet the needs of this essential type of activity, it is necessary to apply appropriate specific mechanisms so that the newspaper can reach readers as quickly as possible. The law needs a legal corridor so that press agencies can sell their own newspapers.
To do this, competent authorities should study the direction of clearly defining cases of purchasing newspapers to provide to approved groups of subjects that are subject to the application of designated bidding.
