HCMC to speed up public investment disbursement

HCMC – As it is extremely hard to meet the public investment disbursement target for this year, HCMC has convened a conference to discuss coping measures in the final two months of the year.

The Standing Committee of the HCMC Party Committee held the conference as public investment disbursement is below the country’s average.

Nguyen Van Hoan, vice chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee, said at the conference that the total budget allocation for the city this year is VND68,490 billion but as of October 16, only 35% of the amount had been disbursed.

Statistics showed that 18 publicly-funded projects have recorded zero disbursement though they were allocated over VND5,900 billion for this year.

Investors of 1,807 projects said they would meet 95% of their disbursement targets, with 288 of them needing to speed up disbursement.

However, around 233 projects in the city could not complete 95% of their targets, resulting in total public capital of over VND19,500 that could not be disbursed.

Explaining the reasons for the slow disbursement, Hoan said 98 projects could not meet their targets of public investment disbursement due to hindrances to compensation and resettlement.

Poor contractor capacity, prolonged revisions of plans, differences between settlement costs and estimates, and failures to finalize projects in due course are also attributed to the failure of public investment disbursement.

Phan Van Mai, permanent deputy secretary of the HCMC Party Committee and chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee, said that the city would strive to achieve a disbursement rate not below 80% for this year. Under the current circumstances, it is impossible for the city to meet 95% of the full-year disbursement target, he added.

Authorities of HCMC’s districts and Thu Duc City are requested to work with site clearance compensation teams to boost disbursement, as the funds must be allocated by the end of this year.

Party Secretary of HCMC Nguyen Van Nen emphasized the need for investors to work well with competent authorities to facilitate disbursement, saying that strong measures would be taken to inspect and monitor public investment in the rest of the year, including replacing underperforming officials.

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