The National Assembly (NA) will debate Government reports on socio-economic development and more than 10 draft laws when the second session of the 12th National Assembly starts on Monday.

According to Tran Dinh Dan, head of the NA Office, draft laws set for discussions include the Personal Income Tax Law, the Law on Quality of Products and Commodity, the Special Amnesty Law and the Justice Assistance Law.

Dan said the second session of the 12th NA will last until November 22, following the NA Standing Committee’s closing ceremony for its third session yesterday.

The Assembly will spend five days discussing socio-economic Government reports and 10 days discussing draft laws, with eight draft laws set for approval during the session.

The NA will also discuss reports on the judicial sectors and reports on voter opinions.

Most of the deputies agreed with the contents of the coming session.

Yesterday morning, the Standing Committee approved a revised Ordinance for Implementation of Sentences.

NA Deputy Chairman Uong Chu Luu asked the NA’s Justice Committee to co-ordinate with the Ministry of Public Security to adjust some areas in the Ordinance and finalise points of contention.

The Standing Committee also discussed the draft Ordinance for seizing marine ships.

According to the deputy Chief Judge of the Supreme People’s Court, Dang Quang Phuong, the draft has eight chapters, and 63 regulations and it regulates matters related to demands to seize marine ships.

Anti-corruption, thrift

Reports on implementing the Law on Practising Thrift and Combating Waste and Anti-Corruption Law topped the agenda at a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Thursday.

Most committee members agreed that the Government had shown determination and made an effort to put the laws into action.

The report on anti-corruption and implementation of the Law on Practising Thrift and Combating Waste said that since early this year, the Government’s key tasks for 2007 were economic growth, administrative reform and fighting corruption and waste.

According to the Government Inspector’s report, efforts to prevent and combat corruption have gained many important results.

Ministries and sectors have checked nearly 10,000 legal documents that deal with State-owned land, houses and cars. They have also issued more than 1,000 new documents, adjusted 782 others, and cancelled 589 documents.

From January 2006 to the end of August 2007, the ministries, sectors and localities have uncovered 441 corruption cases, bringing 406 cases and 826 people to court on charges of corruption. The total cost caused by corruption has been put at VND286 billion. However, according to the Government Inspector, the fight against corruption in recent years was still limited, as co-ordination between relevant offices remained weak and progress in solving key cases was lengthy, hampering public trust in the system.

The Standing Committee also heard a report from the Ministry of Finance on implementation of the Law on Practising Thrift and Combating Waste.

According to the report, one year since implementing the law, although a lot of progress has been gained, challenges remained.

In terms of basic construction projects, despite investigations into projects which lead to price estimates being cut by VND493 billion, construction units were still colluding with each other to make false reports and were siphoning off the excess cash for themselves.

In management and use of the State budget, although the last nine months this year has seen savings of VND59.3 billion in buying property and equipment, inspectors discovered VND137 billion being used illegally.

The Government reports pointed out that it is necessary to motivate the masses in the fight against corruption, practising thrift and combating waste. They outlined a series of solutions to continue raising the effectiveness of these efforts from now to the end of next year.

These solutions stipulate that the Government should highlight the role of office leaders, boost inspections, and strictly punish organisations and individuals who violate the laws.

Some deputies said corruption and waste was still a serious problem in many sectors and localities while the number of cases brought to court was still small.

It is expected that the Government will continue to complete reports on implementation of the two laws and report to the National Assembly at the second session of the 12th NA on Monday.

Source: VietnamNews.