Discussion on New Points in the Amended Law on Practicing Thrift and Combating Wastefulness

Agency Heads Must Justify When Wasteful Practices Are Detected

According to Deputy Minister Truong Chi Trung, the revised Law has been restructured and clarified regarding the scope of regulating thrift practice and anti-wastefulness in managing and using state budgets, state funds, state assets, labor, and workforce time in the public sector; thrift practice and anti-wastefulness in the management, exploration, and utilization of resources; thrift practice and anti-wastefulness in production, business activities, and consumption by organizations, households, and individuals.

The revised Law clarifies the principles of thrift practice and anti-wastefulness as stipulated in Article 4. This is a regular task, from guidelines, policies, and mechanisms to organizational implementation linked to inspection and supervision. On the other hand, thrift practice and anti-wastefulness must be associated with administrative reform and ensure the completion of assigned tasks without affecting the normal functioning of agencies and organizations.

The revised Law on Thrift Practice and Anti-Wastefulness has added provisions mandating public disclosure in the management of state budgets, funds, assets, labor, workforce time, and resources as a measure to ensure thrift practice and anti-wastefulness. Additionally, to facilitate the monitoring of thrift practice and anti-wastefulness and enhance sternness in enforcement, the revised Law requires public disclosure of thrift practice results, wasteful actions, and results of handling wasteful actions.

An important new point in the revised Law is that information uncovering wastefulness in any form must be reviewed, resolved, and promptly rectified by the head of the agency or organization where the wastefulness occurred, and an explanation must be made regarding the occurrence of wastefulness. This provision creates a mechanism that encourages organizations and individuals to participate in promptly identifying and providing information on wastefulness, contributing to waste prevention and identifying the responsibilities of agencies, organizations, and individuals involved in wastefulness.

Furthermore, the revised Law outlines violations in the promulgation, implementation, and inspection of norms, standards, and policies, including: issuing norms, standards, and policies against principles; exceeding norms, standards, and policies in implementation; failure to organize inspections of norm, standard, and policy implementation; not addressing or reporting to competent state agencies violations of norms, standards, and policies in a prompt manner, and sanctions for such violations.

Deputy Minister Truong Chi Trung emphasized: The new regulations regarding the system of norms, standards, and policies will serve as important criteria for objectively evaluating thrift practice and anti-wastefulness.

Wastefulness May Lead to Criminal Liability

Regarding wasteful actions, the Deputy Minister noted that while the current Law on Thrift Practice and Anti-Wastefulness does not explicitly address wasteful actions, the revised Law includes relatively comprehensive provisions. Wasteful actions are detailed in several areas, such as: wastefulness in the formulation, appraisal, approval, allocation, and assignment of estimates, finalization, and management and use of state budget funds and funds originating from the state budget (Article 27); wastefulness in procurement, equipping, management, and use of means of transport (Article 32); wastefulness in investment in construction, management, and use of working headquarters, official residences, and public welfare projects (Article 45). These provisions make it easier to identify wasteful actions, bringing the anti-wastefulness effort into substantive and effective reality.

The revised Law has promptly addressed existing issues in the current Law and improved mechanisms for combating wasteful actions through strengthening inspection, audit, and monitoring activities, adding provisions that require annual internal audits for events involving the use of state budget expenditures, such as conferences, seminars, workshops, official travel, to promptly identify and address violations.

Moreover, to encourage agencies, organizations, and individuals to practice thrift and participate in identifying wastefulness, the revised Law includes clear reward and punishment mechanisms. It rewards organizations and individuals with achievements in practicing thrift and identifying and combating wastefulness. Simultaneously, the revised Law stipulates specific cases requiring sanction and compensation for damages. It holds liable agencies, organizations, individuals, and heads responsible for wastefulness, subject to disciplinary action, administrative fines, or even criminal liability. Additionally, vicarious liability is stipulated for heads of superior agencies, organizations, and units if wastefulness occurs in subordinate agencies, organizations, units, or branches directly under their supervision (Article 78).

Another new provision to rectify the shortcomings of the current Law is reporting the results of thrift practice and anti-wastefulness for the year at the end-of-year session, leading to incomplete data for the reporting year. The Law has been revised to require that the report on thrift practice and anti-wastefulness results of the previous year will be presented at the first session of the National Assembly of the following year.

According to Deputy Minister Truong Chi Trung, for the Law to quickly come into effect and be effective, immediately after its passage by the National Assembly, the Ministry of Finance has conducted a review of the guiding content of the Law to develop an implementation plan.

Source: tapchitaichinh.vn

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