No more 26 ministries for the Govt

16:52' 08/06/2007 (GMT+7)

Mr Thang Van Phuc VietNamNet Bridge – Thang Van Phuc, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Secretary General of the Government’s Steering Board for Administrative Reforms, talked with the press about the scheme to restructure the government’s machinery. The Ministry of Home Affairs is designing a scheme to restructure the government’s machinery. How will the government’s structure change? The government has done both macro and micro tasks but it will now perform only macro tasks. The government has been both a player and referee but now everything must be clear and the top requirement is that the government will correctly perform its duties. Public services will be transferred to non-governmental organisations, businesses and social institutions, and not be carried out by the government anymore. For example, we are about to give the right to recognise construction engineers from the Ministry of Construction to the Vietnam Construction Association and the right to recognise lawyers to the Vietnam Lawyers’ Association and it will be the same for the granting of press cards. By doing this, we can simplify the government machinery and restructure the organisation to perform the principle in which a ministry can control various sectors. In addition, international integration requires us to adjust ourselves to have suitable structures and institutions. Why do developed countries have only 12-13 ministries and others around 20 ministries? Our government’s structure must be smaller. We have the restructuring plan but at present we can’t reveal the specific number of ministries; but it will surely not be 26 ministries as present. Which ministries will not exist? The trend is reducing specialised economic ministries. We will restructure agencies under the government that are only administrative agencies like the national television station, the national radio, the Vietnam News Agency, and scientific agencies. State management organisations like the Government Religion Committee will be merged into other ministries. Ministries will also be re-arranged based on the consideration of work scale. The idea of one ministry controlling various sectors was brought up in the 7th Central Party Committee Resolution dated 1999. Why is it only now being performed? In 2002 we tidied the government’s structure. The number of Government agencies has been reduced from 70 to 48 and now 38 (26 ministries and agencies at the same level with ministries and 12 organisations under the government). What are difficulties in re-arranging the government’s structure? The biggest difficulty of reforms is it touches each organisation and person. That’s not only power but interests. If one didn’t think of the common interests and the country’s development but his own interests reforms would be difficult. (Source: Viet Nam Net)