The Ho Chi Minh City People's Council recently approved the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee's proposal on adjusting and supplementing the medium-term public investment plan for the period 2021 - 2025.
Notably, the City added more than VND1,500 billion to the capital plan for the project "Solving flooding caused by high tides taking into account climate change factors in the Ho Chi Minh City area (phase 1)".
Combined with more than VND 296 billion previously allocated, the total public investment capital for the project in this period reached VND 1,800 billion.
The project started in 2016, with Trung Nam Group as the investor under the form of a BT (build - transfer) contract, with a total capital of nearly 10,000 billion VND.
To date, the project has completed more than 90% of the project volume. However, since November 2020, the entire project has had to be temporarily suspended due to legal problems and payment procedures for investors.
Faced with the above situation, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has issued a document recommending the Prime Minister to remove difficulties to soon continue implementing the project.
The city proposed to adjust the feasibility study report without having to re-implement the procedures for adjusting the investment policy. At the same time, Ho Chi Minh City proposed that the State Bank refinance and request BIDV to consider exempting or reducing interest arising from project delays due to objective reasons.
Regarding the payment plan, the city proposed to use 3 land plots determined in the BT contract to pay corresponding to the completed project value. The remainder will be paid with public investment capital.
For the completed and audited volume alone, Ho Chi Minh City proposed to immediately pay more than VND 3,043 billion from the annual public investment capital plan.
The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee also proposed to authorize or assign the Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee to decide on the use of land funds to pay investors to implement the BT project.
Currently, the Ministry of Finance has submitted to the Government a draft resolution to remove obstacles for the project.
According to the Ministry of Finance, promptly resolving long-standing backlogs is necessary to avoid wasting resources and in line with the changing legal policies and laws from time to time.
In the proposal submitted to the Government, the Ministry of Finance proposed to allow adjustment of the feasibility study report without having to re-establish the investment policy for the tidal barrier project.
The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee will be responsible for preparing, appraising and adjusting this report, and being fully responsible for related decisions.
Regarding the plan to use land funds for payment, if the land fund is subject to rearrangement and handling of public assets, the decision will be under the authority of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee according to the provisions of Resolution 98 of the National Assembly.
In case the land is cleared by the State, the payment will be made according to the provisions of Decree 69/2019/ND-CP (amended and supplemented in Decree 35/2021/ND-CP).
In case the value of the land fund is lower than the value of the BT project (after eliminating unreasonable costs), the remaining difference will be paid in cash from public investment capital managed by Ho Chi Minh City.
