Government fails in downsizing efforts
HÀ NỘI — The Vietnamese Government has failed to downsize its large staff, with the number of officials continuing to increase.
Leading a National Assembly delegation supervising the administrative reforms from 2011-2016 to work with the Government on Saturday, NA Deputy Chairman Uông Chu Lưu said that work to reduce the number of people on the State payroll had been “very limited”.
“The statistics say that it (number of public servants) is not decreasing,” he said.
The number of public servants nationwide was more than 3.56 million by December 31, 2015, and climbed to more than 3.57 million by February 1 this year.
Government officials’ wages also expanded by VNĐ5 trillion (US$222.2 million) in one year, from VNĐ405 trillion in 2015 to VNĐ410 trillion in 2016, Lưu said.
Home Affairs Minister Lê Vĩnh Tân, on behalf of the Government, explained that new administrative duties and establishing new district and communal units resulted in the increase.
He also noted that 11 localities employed more than the quotas given by the ministry, resulting in a total of 7,951 extra officers by December 2016. The localities included Hà Nội, HCM City, Đà Nẵng, Hải Dương, Quảng Ninh, Thanh Hóa, Bình Thuận, Bình Dương, Bình Phước, Đồng Nai and Long An.
The number of public servants at communal level and below, meanwhile, hit more than 1.9 million people by the end of last year.
A member of the NA supervision delegation, former NA Legal Affairs Committee Chairman Phan Trung Lý said that few Governmental agencies had managed to downsize. Most of the job cuts they reported were officials who were going to retire anyway.
“Those who can’t do their job, meanwhile, still get to stay in their roles,” Lý said. — VNS
