Ensure expenditure control and quick processing of public investment payment documents

	Vietnam made good progress in reforming public financial management
	The local Finance sector is flexible and strict in managing budget revenues and expenditures

The State Treasury strengthens discipline, raising responsibility of officers performing public expenditure control. Photo: Dak Nong State Treasury

In the first half of 2024, the State Treasury system has allocated VND 484,035 billion of recurrent expenditure, meeting 38.1% of the 2024 recurrent expenditure estimate of the State budget through the State Treasury. Compared to the same period in 2023, this result is VND28,135 billion higher than in value, and 0.4% lower in ratio than the estimate.

Regarding public investment expenditure from the state budget, as of June 30, accumulated payment was VND185,767.5 billion, meeting 27.8% of the 2024 plan assigned by the National Assembly and the Prime Minister. Accumulated payment of investment capital transferred from the previous year to June 30 through the State Treasury system was VND8,558.7 billion/VND52,546.3 billion, meeting 16.3% of the plan. Of which, paid domestic capital was VND8,530.8 billion, equal to 16.7% of the plan, and paid foreign capital was VND27.9 billion VND, equal to 2% of the plan.

To achieve the above results, the State Treasury has implemented solutions to strengthen discipline and enhance the responsibility of officers performing the state expenditure control, ensuring timely expenditures and in line with the law, and meeting the spending needs of budget-using units.

The State Treasury system has controlled payments of recurrent state expenditures to ensure that they are within the scope of estimates approved by competent authorities, in line with the contents, purposes, and standards and norms under provisions of current law. Regarding investment expenditure, the State Treasury has directed the implementation of payment control for capital construction investment projects to comply with the annual capital plan and principles of control of payment, documents and payment time, and urge recovery of advances under the Government regulations.

The State Treasury leaders have issued a directive local State Treasuries to strengthen expenditure control and speed up the disbursement of public investment capital in 2024; record and review difficulties in disbursement of public investment capital to report to competent authorities for consideration and handling.

However, the public investment spending in the first six months of the year is still lower than the set goals.

Mr. Tran Manh Ha, Director of the Department of Expenditure Control (the State Treasury), said that as per annual rules, the disbursement of public investment in the first half of the year is always lower than the rate of the second half of the year due to preparation of project, bidding, contract signing… Moreover, many ministries, branches and localities still face problems related to site clearance during the implementation since the beginning of the year.

Ha also said that the site clearance is a major cause affecting the public investment disbursement. Notably, in recent times, the market for construction and raw materials to implement highway projects in some regions such as the Mekong Delta are still difficult, affecting construction progress. Besides, there are also some subjective problems such as slow investment implementation leading to slow disbursement volume.

Therefore, the Director of the State Treasury said that since the beginning of the year, the State Treasury has sent documents to units requesting to promote public investment disbursement in line with the progress assigned by the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance. At the same time, the State Treasury has ensured immediate payment of all documents sent to the State Treasury. The State Treasury has supported online public services at level 4 to serve investors.

In the last months of 2024, in the issued dispatch on key tasks and solutions to promote growth, control inflation, and stabilize the macroeconomy in July and the third quarter of 2024, the Prime Minister requested ministries, agencies and localities to consider public investment disbursement as a key political task, closely follow the detailed disbursement plans and goals of each project for direction… Therefore, the Treasury industry will also closely follow these directions to focus on drastically implementing related work.

Director of the Department of Information Expenditure Control, in the third quarter of 2024, the State Treasury will coordinate with the Department of Investment (Ministry of Finance) to implement training on public investment and expenditure control in both the South and North, so that ministries and branches may well carry out the disbursement of public investment. At the same time, the State Treasury will continue to promote reform of administrative procedures, improve responsibility and compliance with discipline for State Treasury staff.

Experts also believe that ministries, branches and localities need to focus on removing difficulties and obstacles in implementing policy mechanisms related to public investment disbursement, especially on site clearance, raw material prices… Investors need to expedite the progress and construction to ensure payment volume with the State Treasury.