Deputy Prime Minister Vương Đình Huệ delivers speech at a meeting with the Finance Ministry to review the draft Law on Management and Use of Public Property.– Photo VGP

HÀ NỘI – Public property tasks, rights and responsibilities need to be clarified, according to Deputy Prime Minister Vương Đình Huệ.

“The law should clarify the public property management rights and responsibilities of the National Asembly, the Government, the Prime Minister, and heads of State agencies”, Huệ said in a meeting with the Finance Ministry to review the draft Law on Management and Use of Public Property.

The deputy PM asked the Finance Ministry – the law compiler – to make the scope of the draft law clearer.

Along with public property natural resources, the law must define other kinds of properties owned by the State and managed or handed over to State non-production administration.

The State does not have policies to create properties for lease. But when State agencies lease public property such as land, the rent does not go to the State Budget. The money goes to agencies instead.

The draft Law on Management and Use of Public Property aims to replace the 2008 Law on Management and Use of State Property, which is the current law.

According to the Ministry of Finance, after six years of the law’s implementation, management and use of State properties had gained some achievements.

Properties in healthcare, education, culture and sport, and other sectors have dramatically increased to become an importance financial source for the country’s socio-economic development.

But the law also exposed shortcomings.

Under the law, the mechanism of public property management and use, including property purchase and investment, was not in accordance with the financial mechanism and lacked compatibility and systematisation. These activities were also regulated by many different laws.

The present law on State property management lacks clear definition of the responsibilities and rights of managers and users, the separation of the responsibility and rights of those people, and the decentralisation of management.

Despite efforts, public property is still wasted, especially in land and housing.

The Law on Management and Use of Public Property is intended to solve these shortcomings.

The draft law, which stipulates in detail some points in the law of managing and using public property, is scheduled to be submitted to the National Assembly this October.

The deputy PM asked the Ministry of Finance to gather comments from relevant ministries, branches, localities and law experts to complete the law as scheduled. -- VNS