At a meeting yesterday, June 17, assessing the Government’s administrative procedure simplification project, known as Project 30, Phuc said, however, " A number of proposals to reform administrative procedures are very general and unpersuasive. Some ministries and agencies even proposed cutting existing administrative procedures but failed to provide any reasons."

Under Project 30, in the first six months of this year, ministries and Government agencies will be required to review all of their administrative procedures and give proposals to reduce red tape.

"There are ministries that have made their proposals look good by estimating an unrealistic cost reduction due to proposed cuts of administrative procedures. Others failed to provide calculations and said they did not have enough data," said Ngo Hai Phan, deputy director general of the PM’s Administrative Procedures Reform Task Force.

Ministries and Government agencies reported to have reviewed 5,500 administrative procedures, and proposed to eliminate 453, replace 288 and amend 3,749 in order to make things easier for citizens and businesses. In their estimation, most ministries and agencies had met the PM’s requirements to cut down 30 per cent of the costs of administrative procedures, which equalled VND30 trillion (US$1.58 billion) per year.

In order to conduct the above reports, each ministry and agency set up a group to specifically work on administrative reforms. "Many of these groups, however, have not shown their independent opinions and have not fulfilled their tasks," said Phan.

According to Nguyen Trong Phat, head of the Ministry of Information and Communications’ Office, members of those groups were mostly officials and staff members from different departments under the ministry. "When it comes to simplifying administrative procedures in their own departments, which relates directly to their benefits, it is very hard for them to decide," he said.

Nguyen Xuan Binh, head of the administrative procedure reform group of the Home Affairs Ministry, said that besides affecting people’s benefits, reducing administrative procedure also meant that the department officials had to spend a lot of time doing extra work to review procedures under their authorities. "Many departments do not want to bother with that, and they told us that all of their procedures were fine and did not need to be simplified," he said.

Binh said the group had to submit two proposals to the minister, one as it suggested and one as the departments under the ministries suggested. "The role of the minister is therefore very important. Ministries that have enthusiastic ministers are more likely to fulfil their tasks of simplifying administrative reform."

Among 24 ministers and Government agencies who have submitted their reports, Phuc said the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Viet Nam Bank for Social Policies had seen poor quality in assessing their administrative procedures.

Phuc urged ministers and heads of Government agencies to be more proactive in Project 30. "Each ministry and agency has to be aware that this project is very important and it will not only bring us great benefits financially, but more importantly, it will create trust among people and businesses in the Government," he said.

Earlier this month, the Prime Minister approved 258 administrative procedures that had been prioritised to be simplified. Those procedures would help save about VND5.7 trillion ($300 million) each year in administrative fees. Ministries and Government agencies are required to submit to the Prime Minister a final report on administrative procedure reform by July 31. The Government expects that by December 31, a new set of reformed administrative procedures will be released.

Source: VietNamNet/Viet Nam News