Civil servants should consider censures as motivation to rise, HCMC Party Chief Public servants must listen to censures and considered them as a motivation to rise. If each civil servant and each agency conduct administrative reform, it will bring great benefits, said Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Dinh La Thang at a meeting on administrative reform indexes yesterday.   HCMC Secretary Dinh La Thang (R) states at the meeting. Compared to urban planning and anti-flooding, administrative reform is a less costly breakthrough program with immediate efficiency. Why the city does not make attempts to implement it, he said. What need to do now is to cut unofficial costs, which requires transparence, and streamline the staff of public servants and officials to improve their quality and ability, he said. According to reports by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) at the meeting, HCMC’s provincial competitiveness index (PCI) degraded from 4 in 2014 to 6 last year. In addition, the city was not in the top ten of provinces and cities with the highest public administration performance index (PAPI) for the last five years, the city’s index has reduced year by year. Deputy director of the Internal Affairs Department Le Van Lam attributed the index degradation to many reasons, for instance HCMC is the most populous city in Vietnam but estimation of these indexes is similar to other provinces. Specifically, the city has ten million citizens but gets feedbacks about these norms from only 530, which Mr. Lam said not all right. It will be a difficult mission for the city to be listed in the top ten, he added. Disagreeing with that statement, Mr. Thang said that citizens and businesses’ taxes have been spent on paying salary to civil authority so it is responsible for serving them. The city People’s Committee and relevant agencies should find and analyze reasons to repair difficulties and limitations to better their serving and get citizens’ satisfaction, he said. Ranking improvement does not mean chasing achievements but targeting citizens and businesses’ satisfaction, he added. He asked the city People’s Committee and leaders of agencies and districts to increase their staff’s awareness of conducting specifically assigned measures to improve business and investment environment. Even when they clearly determine that administrative reform is not citizens’ demand but also city leaders’ and public servants’, the interaction between citizens and the government at various levels will be better and administrative reform will be successful, he affirmed. Responsibilities of agency leaders should be dignified to solve difficulties and carry out policies as well as existing regulations to assist businesses. Mr. Thang required them to maintain the operation of hot lines and e-portals to timely rectify limitations and weaknesses in this duty. He prompted to build e-government and publicize the process and time to solve administrative procedures for citizens and businesses to supervise, and quickly settle the overlapping in management among departments and push up decentralization. Deputy Chairman of the city People’s Committee Tran Vinh Tuyen said that the committee has drafted a plan on key missions and solutions to better business and investment environment and increase the national competitiveness in HCMC. Of these, responsibilities of authorized agencies and their leaders and the implementation time of the plan will be clearly specified. SGGP