Low disbursement rate
The important project of building urban railway line No.3 connecting Nhon and Hanoi Station (with a total length of 12.5km and an investment of VND32.9 trillion) is facing slow progress with only 43% of investment disbursed.
Investment capital in railway line No.2 connecting Nam Thang Long and Tran Hung Dao also cannot be disbursed in time in 2020 due to project adjustments after the Law on Public Investment was enacted.
The Yen Xa wastewater treatment plant project started in October 2016 with investment of over VND16 trillion but only 40% of construction items has been completed.
These are key public investment projects in Hanoi that are stagnant, with low disbursement rates. In addition, there are a number of other sluggish projects such as 11 projects to build police headquarters at district, commune and ward levels with a total investment of VND237 billion and only 40% of capital disbursed as well as the project to build the Le Van Luong - Belt road 3 underground tunnel with an investment of VND50 billion but with onlyVND5.8 billion disbursed, among others.
Vice Chairman of Hanoi People’s Committee Le Hong Son said that the city decided to spend VND45.5 trillion worth of public investment on public projects in 2020. The city has disbursed VND26.6 trillion in the first eight months of this year, up 2.8% over the same period last year and equivalent to 58.6% of the yearly plan.
Regarding infrastructure construction projects, the city set the target of allocating VND14.8 trillion to 272 projects but only 50 projects have been completed, Son noted.
Removing problems
According to the Hanoi municipal People’s Committee, the disbursement of public investment and the implementation of public projects remains slow mainly due to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, inadequacies in legal documents, prolonged land clearance and the weaknesses of deployment units.
Director of the Urban Railway Project Management Board Nguyen Cao Minh said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, foreign experts could not go to Hanoi while equipment and components ordered from abroad were also delayed, slowing down the progress of urban railway lines.
In addition, land clearance and resettlement of affected residents continues to encounter problems including the identification of the origin of land and complaints against compensation policy and prices, which also affect the construction progress.
The complicated overlapping of regulations between the Law on Public Investment and other laws also reduces the speed of public projects.
Director of the Hanoi Management Board of Projects on Water Supply, Drainage and Environment Nguyen Van Hung added that the stagnant disbursement is also attributable to irresponsibility in the operating process of investors and the lack of capacity of staff on project management boards.
To speed up the disbursement of public investment, Hanoi will continue to implement ten groups of tasks and solutions. In particular, the city will focus on directing investors to urgently carry out projects on the list of medium-term public investment plans as approved by the City People's Council.
The city will also strengthen the inspection and supervision of investment projects with low disbursement results to promptly handle delayed projects. Meanwhile, departments and agencies should continue to review and implement administrative reform for procedures regarding construction investment and compensation for land clearance and land acquisition, amongst others.
"The city will closely monitor the implementation of projects and promptly adjust the capital plans from projects with slow disbursement to other projects. The city will also give specific directions on the handling of problems regarding each project while strengthening management and supervision at construction sites to achieve the disbursement target of 97% to 100% of public investment capital in 2020 and in January 2021, making an important contribution to achieving set growth targets,” said Standing Vice Chairman of Hanoi People’s Committee Nguyen Van Suu.
