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Financial management yet to come up to scratch
Stories of lax financial discipline last week heated up the National Assembly hall. Do Manh Hung, a National Assembly delegate from Thai Nguyen province, said Vietnam’s financial discipline had remained problematic for years.
Now, the situation was getting worse. “According to the government’s report, there are four big expenditures exceeding initial estimations,” he said.
The first expenditure was for development investments, which were VND135.5 trillion ($7.53 billion), while the initially planned sum was VND112.8 trillion ($6.27 billion). “Thus, the expenditure has been exceeded by 20.1 per cent, while the government’s report said that the speed and quality of disbursements were limited,” he said.
In 2009’s first nine months, the disbursement rate of construction capital was at 60 per cent of the estimated cost, while that of government bonds was 52 per cent of initial planning. The second expenditure was non-state budget expenditure of VND11.722 trillion ($651 million), of which the excessive amount was VND620 billion ($34.4 million).
The third expenditure was for paying debts, in which there was a VND6 trillion ($333 million) increase against initial estimations and an expenditure of VND11 trillion ($611 million) for social welfare programmes that had not been initially planned. The last expenditure exceeding initial estimations was an advance payment of VND50 trillion ($2.8 billion) though possibility of return remained unclear.
In total, 2009’s initially estimated expenditures were VND491 trillion ($2.78 billion), but the real expenditures were VND533 trillion ($29.61 billion). “Under the current law, a project with VND20 trillion ($1.11 billion) has to be submitted to the National Assembly for consideration. But, why was the VND42 trillion ($2.33 billion) expenditure exceeding the initial estimation not reported to the National Assembly?” Hung wondered.
Deputy Nguyen Van Ba from Khanh Hoa province said: “I propose that the government give us clear explanations. I think the Budget Law is being sneered at. The government needs to design punishments for expenditure without concrete reasons.”
“State budget expenditure is for socio-economic development. So, expenditure for big projects needs to be revised,” Ba said. Deputy Nguyen Minh Thuyet, from Lang Son province, said the government’s current stimulus package was equivalent to about 80 per cent of Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 30 per cent of the state budget.
“However, the government determined the package without letting the National Assembly Standing Committee know about it,” Thuyet said. He said the current stimulus package could not be controlled and many National Assembly delegates did not know how it was implemented.
“We cannot know the exact effectiveness of the package because a large part of it has been invested in the stock market and in property, both of which are full of risks,” Thuyet said. According to many delegates, many ministries and sectors could not control their budget expenditures. For example, the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) said that some 20 per cent of the state budget was invested in education and training. However, not only the MoET but also localities and other ministries used these expenditure.
“I believe that the ministries of Culture, Sports and Tourism, Information and Communications and even Finance cannot control their expenditures,” Thuyet said. He said while Vietnam was still wrestling with economic woes, the country was about to borrow $500 million for establishing four international universities. In another case, Thuyet noted, if the project to build a nuclear power plant was approved, the government would have to borrow $12 billion, which was tantamount to half of its budget, from outside.
Meanwhile, he said, by 2025, this plant would be able to meet only 4.4 per cent of the country’s power demand. “While will Vietnam not boost investments into agriculture and rural areas and national security, instead of investing in such projects?” Thuyet asked.
According to Minister of Finance Vu Van Ninh, the money exceeding the initial estimations came from standby capital resources for preventing natural calamities and from additional 2008 revenues.
vietnamnet, vir
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