Why failing to attend meetings is more than just bad manners HCM City leaders have criticised the heads of local agencies for their frequent absences from meetings. On March 20, HCM City leaders held a meeting with representatives of local youth unions and outstanding young people to gather opinions and suggestions about start-ups, applied science and technology, administrative reform and quality of service provided by local government officials to the public. However, leaders of many agencies, including the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Department of Internal Affairs, failed to attend in person and some agencies failed to even send representatives. Party Secretary Dinh La Thang was upset by the absences and asked Nguyen Thanh Phong, chairman of HCM City People's Committee, to criticise these agencies. "It's an unacceptable attitude. Directors of departments don’t seem like they can be bothered to turn up while the city’s youth union, party secretary and the chairmen of HCM City People's Committee and People's Council have made the meeting," he said.   HCM City Party Secretary Dinh La Thang spoke at the meeting with representatives of local youth unions and outstanding young people on March 20, 2016. Absences are nothing new in HCM City. Not long ago, Phong dismissed delegated subordinates who had turned up representing a local people's committee at a meeting on March 1 as the invitations were sent to their leaders by name. He did not accept the apologies for their lack of attendance. "I don't understand what were you doing? This meeting has been scheduled since early of the week," he said. Illnesses or emergency leave was acceptable, but failure to attend or sending proxies instead was no longer an tolerable situation. If ignoring invitation from the city chairman is intolerable, then ignoring meetings with youth union, party secretary and chairmen of HCM City People's Committee and People's Council is an entirely different level of disrespect being shown to both the public people and their colleagues. And what will the young people, the future of the country, think about such absences? Yet as the 12th Party Congress ended, the party general secretary made commitment that the officials would be respectful to the people and work for the people. "In terms of working style, officials from localities to those at the top should be changed to become more scientific, democratic and practical," he said. Before dealing with crime, Dinh La Thang and Nguyen Thanh Phong should restore discipline within the system. By Bui Hoang Tam | dtinews.vn