NA seeking measures to tackle rife wastefulness By P. Thao | dtinews.vn Wastefulness is as serious as corruption but it seems to be not easy to deal with it, especially at state agencies, several National Assembly deputies have said.   NA Deputy Huynh The Ky said it’s hard to quantify wastefulness These comments came during discussions on the amended draft Law on Thrift and Wastefulness Prevention on June 18. Truong Thai Hien, a NA deputy from Kien Giang Province, said, “Wastefulness has been a pressing issue and is like a companion with corruption.” He named some types of wastefulness including the investing of VND865 trillion (USD41.26 million) on building offices and buying public cars, public spending reaching VND978 trillion (USD46.64) and capital allocation for the management of 3,000 state-owned enterprises at VND5,000 trillion (238.5 billion). He estimated that if only 5% of such spending was cut, it would help save around VND350 trillion (USD16.7 million). If this was used for social security, it would help build 35,000 houses worth VND100 million (USD4,769) each. Huynh The Ky, from Ninh Thuan Province, said wastefulness was as serious as corruption. He blamed the situation on the lack of political will, and lack of awareness by top leaders, state officers and the lack of a legal framework. “Corruption seems to be more specific with offenders who must be held accountable, but quantifying wastefulness is really hard,” he assessed. He said that in several cases the government required the participation of five officials in a province for a meeting in Hanoi. Such spending could be saved for the construction of housing if live online meeting was conducted instead. He proposed that accountability among top leaders should be mentioned in the law by clarifying the use of vehicle fuel, public cars as well as costs for their agency operations. Senior officials should act as examples for their subordinates. In order to save time and human resources, he suggested reorganisation of the current apparatus by merging some departments and associations together. Le Van Tan from Ha Nam Province said the plans for construction of urban and residential areas are sometimes uncontrollable, resulting in land and capital squandering and adding to bad debts in the banking system. “The supervision over thrift practice and wastefulness prevention is inefficient. The recent report by the NA’s Standing Committee on the use of government bonds for the 2006-2012 period failed to clarify how much out of total capital worth hundreds of trillions of VND was wasted and who should be held accountable,” he added. Deputy Nguyen Manh Cuong from Quang Binh Province said there are still some loopholes in the current regulation that requires state agencies to make public their activities as it allows leaders of such agencies to use a variety of media. Deputy Le Van Tan agreed, saying that authorities should be compelled to make public their activities on their sites, at their offices or via the media. In order to effectively deal with wastefulness, it’s important to define detailed related activities and levels of punishments, including criminal accountability, said Deputy Tran Van Tan from Tien Giang Province.