President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc (left) shake hands with a voter in District 10, HCM City. — VNA/VNS Photo Thống Nhất

HCM CITY — President Nguyễn Xuân Phúc on Tuesday attended a meeting with voters of District 10, HCM City, highlighting that more attention is needed to disadvantaged groups’ access to support policies.

HCM City’s leaders and National Assembly (NA) delegation were also in attendance.

Speaking at the event, President Phúc said that HCM City had made significant achievements in economic development and recovery after the severe impact of COVID-19 over the past two years.

One of the key tasks for the city in the next year would be stabilising the financial and real estate market by taking innovative measures to restore confidence in the field, he said.

HCM City also needed to address its shortcomings in the low disbursement rate of public investment, preventing the risk of decreasing growth quality, and the bottlenecks in receiving capital.

At the event, 150 voters from 14 wards in the district presented suggestions regarding the National Assembly activities, preventing and controlling corruption and wastefulness, as well as social welfare issues.

Đinh Văn Huệ, a Ward 5 resident, said: “Cases of corruption and wrongdoings were mentioned in the most recent meeting of the National Assembly.

“The central government and the NA need to identify the root causes of the situation in order to come up with solutions, with the highest determination to fight and eradicate corruption and wrongdoings.”

Huệ said that in this mission, prevention would be better than cure, adding that comprehensive laws, policies and regulations are needed so that each and everyone doesn’t need to, doesn’t want to and doesn’t dare to conduct corrupt actions.

Ngô Thị Thạnh, a resident in the same ward, said that the people had been welcoming the news that the base salary was set to increase on July 1, 2023.

She suggested that authorities consider the policy to take effect sooner, as people had been severely affected in the two years of COVID-19, price hikes and depleted savings.

Thạnh said: “In recent years, the low base salary has had a significant impact on the employment and life of public employees, leading to numerous cases of resignation and job transfer to the private sector.

“The current state of human resources in health and education sectors is the most concrete example of this situation.”

Thạnh added that as a city with high living standards, salary calculations based on the national base salary was a matter that would need consideration for suitable adjustments.

This issue was what the new policies and frameworks specialised for HCM City would have to look into for the improvement of labourers and public workers, preventing brain drain and nurturing talents.

Nguyễn Quốc Hưng, a voter in the district, also raised concerns about health insurance accessibility, citing a case where a resident in his neighbourhood was told he could only have a prescription if he agrees to buy the medicine.

He believed that authorities of all levels needed to pay more attention to this matter, especially for disadvantaged groups of people.

Responding to Hưng, President Phúc said that according to regulations, people in poverty or ethnic minorities in disadvantaged areas all receive full health insurance for medical examinations.

“It is a pressing concern for all levels of the government that people in poverty or disadvantaged circumstances have trouble accessing social policies,” said the president.

He added that: “Now that the case has been raised, we need to review and clarify the implementation of health insurance support policies for poor people and ethnic minorities, to see whether it has been done well and promptly.”

President Phúc said that apart from a majority of people who enjoyed stable incomes, many others were still experiencing low wages and lack of employment.

HCM City needed to pay more attention to the disadvantaged groups’ access to health and childcare policies, he said. — VNS