Ca Mau urges acceleration of public investment disbursement

The Chairman of the Ca Mau Provincial People’s Committee recently issued a directive to relevant functional units, project owners, and local authorities within the province, urging them to accelerate the implementation progress of projects. The goal is for public investment fund disbursement to reach at least 95% by the end of 2024, in line with the Prime Minister’s directive.
Many large projects in Ca Mau are being accelerated under the direction of Ca Mau provincial leaders.
Many large projects in Ca Mau are being accelerated under the direction of Ca Mau provincial leaders.

To achieve this target, the head of Ca Mau’s provincial government has called on heads of provincial departments, agencies, project owners, and local leaders to demonstrate strong commitment and responsibility. They are instructed to rigorously, consistently, and effectively implement tasks and solutions aimed at expediting the progress and disbursement of public investment funds, as outlined in Action Programme No. 01/CTr-UBND and other directives from the Ca Mau Provincial People’s Committee on the 2024 public investment plan.

Additionally, efforts should continue to focus on staff allocation to speed up administrative procedures processing time and reduce internal administrative procedure times by at least 30% for investment and disbursement applications. The goal is to enhance auditing, settlement, and finalisation of public investment funds, avoid backlogs of completed but unpaid tasks and prevent last-minute disbursements at the end of the year.

The quality of project preparation should also be improved to closely monitor the handling of project applications to ensure timely documentation updates. In addition, thoroughly review and align capital allocation plans with actual project implementation and disbursement needs while preparing conditions for executing the 2025 public investment plan.

The Chairman also assigned specific tasks to each provincial unit and department, within their scope of authority, to provide timely advice to the Provincial People’s Committee to address difficulties and accelerate the progress and disbursement of the 2024 public investment funds.

Local governments within the province have been assigned the responsibility of effectively managing and expediting the disbursement of funds for national target programs allocated for 2024 (including funds rolled over from previous years). They are also instructed to conduct inspections and resolve project challenges under district management.

Project owners are required to expedite project execution, urging contractors to enhance construction capacity and develop suitable plans and solutions to recover delays in completed work volumes and previously disbursed capital for construction advances that have not yet been paid, ensuring target completion volumes are met as per project timelines.

Furthermore, they must promptly conduct acceptance of completed work volumes and quickly finalise documentation to coordinate with the State Treasury for payment of completed volumes according to regulations. Early project completion is especially encouraged for important provincial projects, forming the basis for evaluating the potential utilisation of the 2024 public investment plan and the medium-term investment plan for 2021-2025 so that any surplus funds can be redirected to other projects, if available.

As of the end of the third quarter of 2024, Ca Mau’s overall disbursement rate was only about 54.3% of the 2024 public investment plan. While this rate is above the national average (42.63%), it falls short of the provincial goal of at least 75%, as set out in Action Programme No. 01/CTr-UBND of the Ca Mau People’s Committee. Some project owners with lower-than-average disbursement rates have been reprimanded and reminded of their responsibilities.