Unfinished then abandoned, wasting budget
Quang Ngai Provincial People's Committee has approved the investment in the construction of Son Tinh Model Vocational Training Center with a total budget of more than 37.8 billion VND from November 28, 2012. The project is invested by the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (old), of which the central capital support from the National Target Program on Employment and Vocational Training is more than 33.9 billion VND, and the remaining more than 3.9 billion VND is from the provincial budget.
After spending billions of VND to clear the site, the project was started in 2013 with the expectation of becoming a place to train rural workers, providing human resources for industrial parks in the province. However, after more than a decade, that expectation is still only on paper.
Reality records show that the project campus of nearly 30,000m2 is currently covered in weeds, many construction items are unfinished and then abandoned for 11 years, seriously degraded. Unfinished rows of houses exposed to sun and rain, becoming a painful image of budget and land waste.
Outraged by the "shelved" project situation, Mr. Nguyen Huu Trieu (Tho Phong commune) said: "When we heard the news of building a vocational training center, people were very happy, willing to donate land to do it.Everyone hopes their children will have a place to learn a profession and have jobs.But building it is unfinished and then abandoning it, both wasting state money and hurting people's land.
Need to have a definitive solution
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Dieu - Chief Inspector of Quang Ngai province, the project stopped construction in December 2015 due to capital difficulties. In 2016, the Provincial People's Committee decided to hand over the project to Ho Chi Minh City College of Industry and Trade for management.
The goal of the transfer is to have funds to pay debts to contractors from the money the school transferred after receiving the project, and at the same time continue to invest in completing and putting the center into operation in the 2016-2017 school year, avoiding wasting state assets.
However, after receiving, Ho Chi Minh City College of Industry and Trade did not implement the project, did not put the project into operation as committed, leading to prolonged waste and not completely handling financial obligations according to the transfer decision. Responsibility belongs to Ho Chi Minh City College of Industry and Trade.
In the process of managing and using the project, Ho Chi Minh City College of Industry and Trade invested in a number of small items. According to the school's report, the amount of money the school invested was over 5.7 billion VND. However, the school could not provide cost estimate documents, no construction contracts, no acceptance records, and only provided payment documents of over 1.8 billion VND.
In November 2022, the School reported that it could not continue to implement the project due to lack of legal basis and financial difficulties; and at the same time proposed to return the project to the province and refund the amount of more than 7.2 billion VND already paid. However, to date, the project has not been handed over to the province for management because the value of the items that the school has invested in and supplemented has not been determined.
The conclusion of the Quang Ngai Provincial Inspectorate is that the project has disbursed more than 20 billion VND but many shortcomings and violations have arisen. Notably, the project was started without a decision to recover or allocate land, violating the provisions of the Land Law. Responsibility belongs to the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (old) and related project management units.
Mr. Nguyen Van Dieu - Chief Inspector of Quang Ngai province - said that currently, the handling of the project's assets and resolving the proposal of Ho Chi Minh City College of Industry and Trade on returning over 7.2 billion VND that the school transferred to the Department of Finance has been directed by the leaders of the Provincial People's Committee to the Department of Finance to implement. Quang Ngai Provincial Inspectorate also requested the Department of Finance to coordinate with relevant agencies and commune authorities to implement after receiving instructions from the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee.
