Resolve difficulties and foster the disbursement of public investment capital

Estimated capital payment reached nearly 215,579 billion VND

Mr. Duong Ba Duc - Director of the Investment Department, MoF said that to manage investment capital effectively, since the beginning of the year, the MoF has proactively advised and operated under the Resolution of the National Assembly, the Government,and the Prime Minister; directed functional units to promptly synthesize and report difficulties and arisingproblems; promptly handled recommendations of ministries and central agencies on the implementation of public investment plans in 2023.

The MoF has investigated the allocation of State budget investment capital to ministries and branches underregulations (including assigned capital at the start of the year and prolonged capital). The MoF has made comments on the contents of the allocation that are not in accordance with regulations, as well as on the lack of sufficient conditions to control disbursement, such as arranging capital for new start-up projects that are not eligible, improper allocation of sectors and fields underregulations, allocating capital for transitional projects that have exceeded the time limit for allocating capital.

On that basis, ministries and central agencies shallcomplete capital allocation under regulations. Simultaneously, approving estimates on the Tabmis (Budget and Treasury Management Information System) for the State Treasury (ST) to have a solid foundation to control State budget investment capital expenditure for projects.

Furthermore, the MoF has directed functional units to comply with the regulations on the appraisal of feasiblestudy reports, appraisal of capital sources and capital balance capacity for local investment programs and projects; appraisal of capital sources and ability to balance the State budget of ministries and branches as per the provisions of the Law on Public Investment and guiding Decrees to limit investment decisions beyond the ability to enact.

In terms of capital disbursement, Mr. Duc stated that the MoF currently provides level 4 online public services for 11 administrative procedures in the field of ST. Simultaneously, 11 administrative procedures, including those for the disbursement of state budget public investment capital, were integrated into the National Public Service Portal. In recent years, the ST system has promoted electronic expenditure control on document delivery and receipt via the ST's Portal, creating favorable conditions for investors and project management boards in the control of State budget expenditures via the ST system.

With the implemented solutions, the estimated payment of public investment capital in the first half of the yearreached nearly 215,579 billion VND, accounting for 30.49% of the Prime Minister's plan. The disbursement rate increased by nearly 10%, compared to May’s. This disbursement rate was also higher (equivalent to 27.75%) than in the same period in 2022; in absolute terms, it was 65,163.1 billion VND higher than the State budget investment plan disbursed in the first six months of 2022.

Insist on transferring capital from inefficient projects

Although there have been some successes in the management and administration of public investment capital, there are still several shortcomings. For example, the amount of unallocated public investment in 2023 is about 33,525 billion VND, accounting for 4.74% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister.

Besides, the allocation of the annual State budget investment capital plan has been strongly decentralized for ministries, sectors, and localities. This, on the one hand, encourages ministries, branches, and localities to take more initiative. On the other hand, it also creates several shortcomings and problems, such as slow plan allocation, unregulated plan allocation, and numerous times to adjust plan allocation.

As a result, the Director of the Investment Department stated that in order to improve the efficiency of the management of public investment capital in the last six months, the MoF is continuing to propose to the Prime Minister to direct ministries, branches, and localities to actively deal with difficulties to implement solutions to accelerate the disbursement of public investment capital under the direction of the Government and the Prime Minister.

The MoF requested that the focus for ministries, branches, and localities be on directing investors and project management boards to urgently complete payment procedures for newly-started projects that have not yet arrived at the ST to open accounts. Concerning transitional projects, it is essential to accelerate the implementation of transitional projects by strictly enforcing the regulations on the time limit for volume acceptance and payment procedures with the ST to overcome difficulties in the construction process and foster clearance.

Simultaneously, it is necessary to strengthen inspection and timely handle problems under authority to accelerate project implementation and payment of capital; resolutely transfer capital plans from ineffective projects, slow disbursement to projects with good and effective disbursement progress but lack of capital to ensure disbursement of all assigned capital.