Nâng cao hiệu quả phân cấp quản lý đầu tư công trên địa bàn tỉnh thái nguyên

ENHNACING THE EFFICIENCY OF DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE • NGO NGAN HA Abstract: Publicinvestment plays an important role in Thai Nguyen Prov

ENHNACING THE EFFICIENCY

OF DECENTRALIZATION OF PUBLIC

INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

• NGO NGAN HA

Abstract:

Publicinvestment plays an important role in Thai Nguyen Province’sdevelopment It does notonly contribute to promotetheprovincial socio-economic butalso support theprovincial infrastructure development and boost the labor productivity Besides achieved encouraging results, publicinvestment in Thai Nguyen Province still existsmanylimitations, especially a low investment efficiency The inadequacy indecentralization ofpublic investment management between the centralgovernmentand local government is one of main resasons for this issue This paper presents the limitations and causes in the decentralization of public investment management in Thai NguyenProvince Based on the paper’s findings, somerecommendations areproposedto enhnace the efficiency of decentralizationof public investment management in Thai Nguyen Province in the coming time

Keywords: public investment,decentralization, ThaiNguyenProvince

1 Introduction

Thai Nguyen is a northern midland and

mountainous province Total public investment

capital reached 7637.3 billion VND in 2020

Over the years, public investment in Thai Nguyen

Province has made great economic contributions

whichimproved the qualityof localpeople’s lives In

order to increase the efficiency ofpublic investment,

local government has focused on improving

public investment management decentralization

Therefore, the decentralization ofpublic investment

management in Thai Nguyen Province during

the time has changed positively, especially

promoting the dynamism,creativity, autonomyand

self-responsibility of the authorities at all levels

However, in general, the decentralization of

public investment management in Thai Nguyen

Province has not met the requirements of realityyet

and revealed manylimitations such as promulgating

in legal documents, state legal policies on

decentralization ofpublic investment management

are not synchronized, lack of consultation oflocal organizations and people Besides, allocation of capital sources is spreading; planning the public investment to lower governments has the existence

of equilibrium; public investment decisions are still subjective and appraisal methods are limited In addition, the implementation ofpublic investment projects of the local government has many inadequacies and lack of competitivenessin bidding Common project adjustment doesnot pay attention

to the issueof operation

In the scope of this article, through secondary data, this research focus on analyzing the situation of decentralization of public investment management and proposing solutions to improve decentralization

of public investment management in Thai Nguyen Province

2 Situation of public investment in Thai Nguy­

en Province

The growth rate of public investment capital:

Public investment capital in Thai Nguyen

27Ó SÔ 14 -Tháng Ó/2021

Province tendsto growunstably in theperiod from

2014-2020.Itis worth noting that public investment

capital decreases gradually, with an average decline

rate of 2.4% / year However, from the year 2017

onwards, public investment capital has risen again

with a growth rate of 13.7% / year This is due to

that thelocal government has wellimplemented the

policythat analyzing and promoting the restructure

of public investment, reengineering state-owned

enterprises in the direction of divesting capital in

industries, sectors which are not directed by the

Government of Vietnam

Chart 1 Growth rate of public investment

capital in Thai Nguyen province in the

period from 2014- 2020

Source: Statistics Office of Thai Nguyen Province

The structure of public investment capital:

In the periodfrom 2014 - 2020, public investment capital from the state budget accounted for a very large proportion in thestructure of public investment capital, by an average of 65.6% Even in 2018,2019 and 2020, the public investment capital from the state budget accounted for more than 90% of the total public investment capital This capital source

is mainly formed from the State budget's revenues through the collection of taxes, fees, charges, selling resources, etc The structure of public investment capital isshown inthe following chart:

3 Achievements and limitations of decen­ tralized public investment management in Thai Nguyen province

Through the transfer of authority and responsibility for public investment management from the central government to local government, decentralization ofpublic investment management

in Thai Nguyen Province has achieved thefollowing results:

Firstly, decentralization of public investment management has createdthe initiativeforlocalities

in socio-economic development, actively exploited

Chart 2 structure of public investment capital in Thai Nguyen Province

in the period from 2014- 2020

Unit: billion VND

8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0

2014 2015

■ Other capital 76.18 22.1

Investments fromSOEs 155.198 1247.6

■ State budget capital 161 6.8 2224.6

2016 2 017 2018 2 019 2 020

640.9 28.3 88.7 25.2 83.2 1227.7 503.1 391.2 292.9 1098.4 2304.4 3801.5 5858.2 5410.2 5990.3

internal resourcesand partially limited the conception

of depending on thebudget of upper level for local

socio-economic development At the same time, it

reduces theburdenon statemanagement agencies at

the provincial level It creates favorable conditions

for departments of the province to spend time

and human resources advising on major policies

and important decisions on local socio-economic

development

Secondly, the decentralization of public

investment management has improved the lives of

localpeopleandpromotedthe local socio-economic

development The decentralization of public

investment management has facilitatedto complete

many important tasks, many works, project which

directly affects the economic development of the

locality

The infrastructure has been graduallyupgraded

Transportation infrastructure has developed

dramatically over the years Transportation

infrastructure system connecting regions is

increasingly completed and it’s convenient for

trading In2020, ThaiNguyen Province hada total

of about 13,132 kmof roads includingonehighway

Hanoi -Thai Nguyen, one front-line Thai Nguyen

-ChoMoi expressway, the national highway has five

routes: National Road7, National RoadIB, Highway

3, National Highway 17,National Highway 3C and

National Highway 37; Road 229 hassix routes with

a total length of 184.4 km; 21 provincial roads are

435.8 km long; 73 district roads with the length

of 791.66km; 1,315 km of communal and inter­

commune roads, etc., thus promoting economic

growthin ThaiNguyenProvince, creating favorable

conditions for non-stateeconomic sectors to develop

and improve people's lives

The irrigation infrastructure system which was

enhancedhas significantlycontributed to promoting

the development of agriculture and rural areas and

basically satisfying the water demand for the tertiary

industry andurbanareas Many urban infrastructure

projects such as transportation, water supply,

drainage, lighting, greenery, solid waste collection

and treatment have been renovated, upgraded

and newly constructed Besides, it’s necessary to

restructure the agricultural sector in the direction

of increasing added value which is associated

with building a new countryside and reorganizing

production Changing the structure of crops and

animals towards the high-value productions and

creating the link between farmers - businesses -scientists - managersare obvious to be considered

In addition, governmentneeds to implement a few projects such as forming areas specialized in the production of safe vegetables, expanding acreage areas, and increasing high-value aquaculture products

In the period from 2014 - 2020, the provincial and district - level authorities in Thai Nguyen Province spent 1741.4 billion VND to invest in the development ofhealth infrastructure including

14 provincial hospitals have been renovated and upgraded, basically building more than 20 nursing and functional rehabilitation hospitals and district clinics The provincial anddistrict - level authorities

in the province have launched a program which solidifies schools and more than 3,000 standard classrooms were solidified This leads to the improvement in the quality of education and the local socio-economic development

Technology infrastructure is built widely and modernly.Information network rapidly develops with wide coverage, connecting with large throughput to areas in the country Media and technology which become disseminated are applied in many fields,

as the result they contribute to the increase of the province's GRDP

From these achievements of decentralization

of public investment management, the quality of people’s lives has been significantly increased,

at the same time the people's responsibility for the community supervision and the protection of investmentprojects inthe area hasalsobeen raised markedly

Although the decentralization of public investment management in Thai Nguyen Province

in the period of 2014 - 2020 has achieved positive results, there are still some limitationsthat need to

be resolved, including:

Firstly, thedecentralization of publicinvestment management in Thai Nguyen Province is almost entirely delegated to the provincial and district levels (especially the work of approving, appraising and making public investment decisions) While the issuance of investment decisions is still arbitrary, the inspection and supervision of authorities at all levels are sometimes formaland administrative, so the macro adjustment of decentralized investment managementlacks effectiveness

Secondly, the fiscal discipline in the

278 So 14 - Tháng Ó/2021

decentralization of public investment management

is not really strict And the central governmentstill

"satisfythe demand" to fill the capitalneeds for the

provincial level, and the provincial level does for

the districts The allocation of budget between the

levels is getting transparent However, the criteria

and norms of decentralized capital allocation for

public investment management still have many

shortcomings Besides,the localities at lowerlevels

have not really been proactive in mobilizing capital

The situation of reliance on the assistance of the

provincial level is common

Thirdly, in the process of decentralization

public investment, many projects have not met the

requirements yet Many items and constructions are

ofpoor quality, oftendegraded after beingput into

use Besides, many projects which are completed

have not been accepted by local people such as the

public sanitation on the central road of ThaiNguyen

City, many cultural houses in thewards,.etc

The above-mentioned limitations stem from

many different reasonsincluding:

• Objectivereasons:

Firstly, the State's decentralized viewpoint In

spite of emphasizing the policy of decentralization,

increasing dynamism, creativity, autonomy, and

self-responsibility of the local government, the

current main viewpoint is still to strengthen

centralization and unification in politics and state

management The specific manifestation of this

ideology is the principle of "decentralizing from

top to bottom" so decentralization to the local

government is still not really thorough

Secondly, the policy has not synchronized

Adopting the same policy in most provinces has

made the local government lessflexible in resource

mobilizationandthelocal government can’t develop

innovative policies The fiscal decentralization has

been expanded, but it has not kept up with and

synchronized with the contentof public investment

management decentralization Thelocal government

is assigned a lot ofauthorities and responsibilities

in public investment management, but the revenue

and expenditure are not expanding proportionallyso

the local government is ineligible to implement the

assigned works

Finally, there is a lack ofregulation guidelines

to implement the investment management

decentralization Currently in Vietnam, there are

no particular documents relating to the public

investment management decentralization, and the guidelines are scattered in many different legal documents This leads to obstacles in monitoring and launching

• Subjective causes:

Firstly, the transparency of information in the public investment management decentralization is not at a highlevel According to the PAPI dataover theyears,theproportion of local people who are not aware ofland-using plans(in whichlands are usedto buildpublic constructions and projects) That leads

to the difficultiesfor people toapproach the public investment programs in order to give opinions as well as to check and supervisethe public investment projects

Secondly, theaccountability of local authorities is nothigh for boththeaccountability of the authorities

atalllevelstothe local people and the accountability

to the central level The degree of compliance by local authoritiesto the central government's public investment decision (also known as accountability to the upperlevel) is limited as Thai Nguyen Province

is frequently on the list of delayed units submit reports tothe Ministry of Planning and Investment According to the accountability index in the PAPI indicators of Thai Nguyen Province shows that the accountability tends to decrease It indicates that the recommendations and denunciations of local people to the authorities at all levels (aboutpublic investment projects) have not been satisfactorily responded bylocalauthorities yet

Finally, theresourcesare limited Moreresources are a prerequisite for implementing the local responsibilities which are decentralized extra However, over the years, Thai Nguyen Province, like many other provinces in the country, has not been able to balance the local budgetby itself The revenue is not stable but the rate of expenditureis high Therefore, the budget ofprovince stilldepends

on the transfers from the central government That leads tothe increase of reliance on the central level

in ThaiNguyenProvince Since then, thebudget for public investmentmanagementdecentralizationwill also be affected

The limitations in public investmentmanagement decentralization are ultimately the weakness ofstate management officers There still exists shortcomings

in both quantity and quality, and the structure is not guaranteed, leading to errors in the process of implementing tasks In addition, there is a lack of

So 14 -Tháng 6/2021 279

morality such as taking advantage of loopholes in

mechanisms and policies, using positions to corrupt

which causes loss andwastespublic investmentcapital

4 Some recommendations to improve public

investment management decentralization in Thai

Nguyen Province

Firstly,it’s necessary to decentralizingtransparently

in public investment management towards completing

a more independentpublic investment management

system for all levels of government in the province

This will facilitate giving full accountability to each

level of government, overcome the high hierarchy

and integration of public investment management

decentralization andencourage the local government

to exploit its strength

Secondly, improving local authority’s autonomy

to increaserevenue inordertohave expenditure isan

objective requirement consistent with the demands

of public investment management decentralization

At the same time, it currently makes the revenue

more commensurate with the expenditure of local

government Therefore, theprovince needsto agree

to decentralize basically revenue and expenditure

to the district and commune levels and gives each

of these levels a certain autonomy in revenue and

expenditure at their level Besides, it’s important

to improve the capability of decentralizing the

public investment management at each level that

is commensurate with their roles in local state

management Clear legal delineation in revenue

and expenditure foreach levelwillcreate initiative

in mid-term and long-term budget planning In

addition, encouraging all levels of government to

pay attention to revenue needs also to beconsidered

In order to increase lower level’s revenue, the

local government’s autonomy in tax is a concern

According to theworld’s point, thelocal government

can set its owntaxin some types of taxes.However,

in Vietnam,it isnot feasible to let local government

set their own taxes because this could create tax

competition among localities However, it is

possible to consider allowing local governments to

decide ontax or feesfor some specificservice taxes

The local government's revenue autonomy in public

investmentmanagement is alsoenhanced by giving

the local government more authority to decide and

collect fees and charges in the local area These

revenues are usually not large in the total budget

revenues of the province The main purpose is

makinglower authorities be more proactive without

affectingthe state budget revenuesof the province Thirdly, improving the transparency and accountability in public investment management decentralization at local levels The promotion of public investment decentralization can achieve the goal if only it is associated with improving the transparency and accountability in using decentralized public investment capital in the locality Appropriate mechanisms should be in placeto strengthen the inspectionof the competent authorities to ensure the effectiveness of the public investment management decentralization

In particular, it is necessary to promote the role

ofelected bodies and of the State Improving the accountability of each level ofgovernment in the public investment managementdecentralization not only to thesuperiors but tothe People's Council and people at that local level

Finally, the local government needs to focus on training state management officersin public investment managementassociatedwith theeffective and practical methods Inorder to improve their capacity, the local government needs to regularly let state management officers attend short-term and long-term training courses In addition, it is necessary to improve the morality of local managers, avoid corrupting in the public investment management process The local government should intensify the propaganda, dissemination and education about anti-corruption laws for cadres, civil servants and public employees working in departments, sectors,investors, and project management which is directly related to the state management of public investment in the locality

5 Conclusion

Public investment management decentralization

is a major policy of the Party and State to enhance the autonomy, creativity and self-determination of the localgovernment,thereby improving the efficiency of publicinvestmentandthesocio-economicdevelopment

in the locality and thewholecountry.ThaiNguyen is the northern midland and mountainous province, the center ofsocio-economic development inthe northern midland andmountainous region Overtheyears,the public investment management decentralization has been carried out according to the Party and State's guidelines and gradually obtained positive results However, with many changes in the domestic and international context, it’s getting important to improve the public investment management decentralization

in Thai Nguyen province^

280 SỐ14-Tháng 6/2021

1 Vu Thanh Tu Anh (2012) Public investment management and decentralization - the situation in Vietnam and the international experience. Vietnam: Fulbright University Vietnam.

2 Tran Kim Chung (2015) Restructuring public investment Hanoi: Finance Publishing House.

3 Nguyen Van Dai (2017), Some models of decentralization of state administration management in the world and suggestions for Vietnam, Journal of European Studies, No 09, p. 37-48.

4 Statistics Office of Thai Nguyen Province (2020) Thai Nguyen Statistical Yearbook 2020 Hanoi: Statistical Publishing House.

Receiving date: March 10,2021

Reviewing date: March 25,2021

Accepting date: April 10, 2021

Author’ s information:

Master NGO NGAN HA

Thuongmai University

NÂNG CAO HIỆU QUẢ PHÂN CẤP QUẢN LÝ ĐẨU Tư CÔNG

TREN ĐỊA BÀN TỈNH THÁI NGUYÊN

• Th.s NGÔ NGÂN HÀ

Đại học Thương Mại

TÓM TẮT:

Đầu tư công có vai frò quan trọng đối với sự phát triển của tinh Thái Nguyên Đầu tư công không chỉ góp phân thay đôi kinh tê - xã hội mà còn nâng cao cơ sở hạ tầng kỹ thuật và năng suât lao động của tỉnh Thái Nguyên Bên cạnh những đóng góp tích cực đó, đâu tư công trên địa bàn tỉnh Thái Nguyên còn tồn tại nhiều hạn chế, nhất là hiệu quả đầu tư còn ở mức tháp Sự bất cập trong phân cấp quản lý đầu tư công giữa Trung ương và địa phương là một frong những nguyên nhân chính dẫn đến hạn chế trên Bài viết này trình bày những hạn chế và nguyên nhân của những hạn chê trong phân câp quản lý đâu tư công tại tỉnh Thái Nguyên; đồng thời đề xuất một sô kiên nghị nhăm nâng cao hơn nữa hiệu quả phân câp quản lý đâu tư công trên địa bàn tỉnh Thái Nguyên.

Từ khóa: đầu tư công, phân cấp, tỉnh Thái Nguyên.

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