A bird's-eye view of the Bến Thành-Suối Tiên metro line in HCM City. The 20km urban railway has faced several delays and costs overruns since construction started in 2012. — VNA/VNS Photo Hoàng Hải

The current Law on Public Investment, which took effect in 2014, says the NA is in charge of approving the total amount of public investment capital to be disbursed over a period of five years.

The Government is responsible for submitting a list of key national projects to be funded with the State budget and setting the amount of investment capital to be given to each project, with the total not to exceed the limit set by the NA.

The draft revised law on public investment discussed by the NA gathering proposes transferring the power to set funding for individual public projects from the Government to the NA, while still allowing the legislative body to set the total amount of funding for all projects in the five-year term.

The Government would no longer be allowed to approve funding levels for each project.

Deputy Lê Thanh Vân from Cà Mau Province supported the draft. Vân said making decisions on how to fund public investment projects was one of the NA’s key responsibilities.

Deputy Tôn Ngọc Hạnh from Bình Phước Province said that with the NA’s heavy workload, it would be unrealistic to expect the legislative body to approve and adjust specific funding for as many as 9,000 projects in five years.

Other lawmakers disagreed, saying the NA’s approval process would not take too much time if the Government makes careful preparations before submitting investment plans.

Unfocused investment

Deputy Lê Thanh Vân said the implementation of the mid-term public investment plan had faced difficulties, including a failure to follow public investment law regulations because the Government’s advisory team had not completed all of the tasks assigned by the NA.

Deputy Nguyễn Thị Quyết Tâm from HCM City proposed the Government attempt to determine whether slow disbursement of public investment funds for key national projects was due to structural problems with the Law on Public Investment or poor implementation of its regulations.

Speaking with Vietnam News Agency reporters on the sidelines of the meeting on Tuesday, deputy Nguyễn Đức Kiên from Sóc Trăng Province said the cost overrun of Bến Thành-Suối Tiên metro project in HCM City and the slow disbursement of funds to hospitals in Hà Nội and HCM City showed that the problems lie in unfocused and ineffective implementation of the law rather than any flaw with the law itself.

According to deputy Hoàng Văn Cường from Hà Nội, the Law on Public Investment must prioritise urgent and realistic projects to address transportation problems, support people in mountainous areas and help stabilise lives.

He proposed the Government issue a set of quality standards for State budget–invested projects after the revised law is passed. Localities which meet the criteria would be selected to receive public investment.

The criteria would help avoid wasteful spending, select suitable projects and assess their efficacy after they are complete, he said. VNS