The Ministry of Finance said the disbursement of official development assistance (ODA) loans reached about US$4.27 billion in 2010, 3.2 percent higher than the initial plan. However, compared with other countries in the region, the disbursement remains slow and investment efficiency is not high. To address these, the Ministry has worked out a series of measures to accelerate the disbursement of this foreign fund.
Giving reasons for unsatisfied ODA disbursement result, the Ministry of Finance said the disbursement was mainly slowed by project documentation preparation, project appraisal and approval process and procedures, contractor selection, negotiation and signing of construction and procurement contracts, consulting services, land compensation, resident reallocations, and site clearance. Besides, leaders of ministries, agencies and localities lacked timely and serious instruction, supervision and examination, and capacity of ODA project managers is generally weak. This is the responsibility of governing agencies and project investors.
To pace up the ODA disbursement, the ministry said all basic preparations like site clearance and investment procedure must be completed before signing credit agreements for those programmes and projects. Procedures of appraising, bidding and approving bids, designs and estimations, etc need simplifying.
According to the Ministry of Finance, provincial and municipal authorities must immediately review investment capital allocation plans to ensure enough of reciprocal capital for funded programmes and projects. On that basis, they are liable to positively deal with land-related matters and create favourable conditions for the implementation of those ODA programmes and projects in their localities. They must also have independent resettlement construction plans to ease up site clearance, ensure the schedule of commencement and completion of projects as committed to donors. At the same time, they consider amending and supplementing norms and technical standards to fit practical situations and international practices.
Project investors must actively complete conditions to sign official borrowing agreements and declare the effectiveness as soon as possible. General agencies as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the State Bank of Vietnam, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, and the Government Office must, depending on their functions and authority, timely give opinions when negotiation results and effectiveness declaration procedures are submitted. Competent authorities will have serious punishments on project governing bodies, investors and related parties when they fail to keep projects on schedule. These punitive measures may include: not arrange new projects, cut off funding or transferring projects to more competent participating units. Project investors (owners) should be increase authority and responsibility in implementing ODA projects, including the right to decide adjustments to project items.
Project and programme governing bodies must improve working and managerial skills of staffs and officials in charge of ODA projects and programmes and ensure enough of personnel for those projects and programmes. At the same time, they should intensify inspection and examination in ODA investment projects. They should also choose some ODA-funded projects to appraise with donors as well as cooperate with donors to quicken the disbursement of ODA loans.
In addition, the finance sector sets out specific tasks, including continued review, supplement or amendment of current regulations on expenditure and disbursement for projects with ODA capital, particularly pertaining to procedures and regulations on payment for new problems, inflation, full payment, etc. The Ministry of Finance coordinates with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to review and ensure enough of reciprocal capital for ODA-funded programmes and projects to facilitate provincial and municipal authorities to flexibly allocate reciprocal capital for ODA-funded programmes and projects as committed to international donors.
According to the ministry, Vietnam needs to speed up the disbursement for negotiated and effective projects, lobby international donors to increase the percentage of cash loan to quicken the disbursement, boost the transparency of State Budget expenditure to strengthen the confidence of international donors, etc.
Hoang Hai
Vietnamese
