Public property management boosted

Pham Dinh Cuong, a director from the Ministry of Finance, talks to the Thoi bao Kinh te Viet Nam (Viet Nam Economic Times) about the Law on Management and Use of State Property which starts in 2009.

How is the drafting work getting on?

The Ministry of Finance has gathered comments from relevant ministries, branches and localities. The ministry will complete the draft and will hold a talk with law experts and some members of the decree drafting board.

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

How do you assess the present management and use of public property?

The National Assembly and the Government have enforced a complete system of legal framework in managing public property, including Decree 14, which is about managing and using public property in administration and non-production sectors, and specific laws, such as the Law on Land, the Law on the Environment, the Law on Mineral, the Law on Natural Resources and the Law on Land Board. A lot of work went into this.

Also, more attention is being paid to the effectiveness and thrift of the management and use of public property. At present not only public offices but public opinion are concerned about the use of cars in public offices and property of project management units, especially land management and use.

However, those laws were promulgated in a different time, so they lack compatibility and systematization. The laws themselves are also not unified, for examples, the Law on Construction, the Law on Land, the Law on Residential Houses and the Law on Investment are incompatible.

It was because the dates of compilation and promulgation and the objectives of the laws were different, so they lacked a comprehensive and synchronic programme.

Moreover, the present legal documents on public property management lack principles that cover a clear definition on the responsibility and rights of managers and users; the separation of the responsibility and rights of those people, and the decentralization of management.

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

Does the law on managing and using public property and law-implementation guiding documents solve those problems?

At first, the law is scheduled to be put into effect as from July 1 next year, but the National Assembly has decided to put it into effect as from the beginning of next year - six months earlier. That shows the National Assembly's high appreciation of the law as one of the most legal documents to apply early implementation to ensure the economic and affective management and use of public property.

However, if we want to make the law practical, we need not only documents, but also the enforcement. When organizing the implementation of the law, we should make relevant ministries, sectors, and especially provinces fully understand the law.

On the other hand, the law's stipulations and under-law documents must be detailed especially stipulations on how to deal with violations: how violations are defined, and what punishment should be applied.

These things should be made clear and set out in detail. I believe that with the determination of the National Assembly, the Government, ministries and sectors, public property management and use will have positive changes.

Source: Vietnam News