The disbursement rate of public investment from foreign capital sources is still low, mainly due to a number of main reasons such as: slow site clearance, slow bidding, technical design; projects must carry out procedures to adjust investment policies, projects, loan agreements; slow receipt of donors' non-objection to documents... In addition, in the first months of the year, a number of ministries and branches still focused on disbursing the 2023 capital plan.

According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tuan, Director of the World Bank Project Management Board (Hanoi National University), this unit has currently allocated and imported TABMIS to complete the foreign public investment capital estimate for 2024; the unit (World Bank Project Management Board) has received foreign public investment capital for 2024 on public services of VND 645,770 million.

In the process of using this source of capital, Hanoi National University is facing some difficulties. Specifically, according to the request from the Sponsor, some of the following activities need to get "No Objection - NOL" opinions from the Sponsor before implementation such as: Project Master Plan, Annual Plan, Project Operation Manual, Bidding Plan for packages using foreign loans, Task Outline for bidding consultants, Bidding Documents and Contractor Selection Results before signing the contract for pre-review packages. Accordingly, the implementation time of these tasks is often prolonged due to the need to continuously update and adjust before the Sponsor sends a No Objection Letter to the units.

In addition, payment is also difficult because the project uses different sources of capital. This makes payment control take a lot of time because payment documents are appraised and controlled at the State Treasury and the Ministry of Finance before being sent to the sponsor for payment to the contractor, leading to delays in capital payment to the contractor at certain times such as holidays, Tet in Vietnam and Christmas and New Year holidays of the sponsor. Accordingly, the risk of funds allocated in the year not being fully used is very likely to occur, the possibility of the project being canceled and not being re-allocated for the following year is very high.

Mr. Nguyen Anh Dung, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment (Ministry of Transport) also shared that this Ministry currently accounts for the largest amount of ODA capital when it was assigned 4,366 billion VND in capital in 2024. The biggest difficulty affecting the disbursement process is related to site clearance. Typically, the project connecting traffic in the northern mountainous provinces, passing through a forested area, the forest conversion procedure takes up to 1.5 years. Therefore, site clearance costs often increase by a significant amount. In addition, there are also many difficulties related to policy mechanisms and project implementation.

Urgently find solutions to disburse ODA capital

To speed up the disbursement process, in the coming time, the Ministry of Finance needs to ensure the time for processing capital withdrawal applications is in accordance with regulations; organize delegations to directly work, urge, and remove difficulties and obstacles in public investment; continue to discuss with donors to remove obstacles on the donor side such as shortening the time and simplifying procedures for giving non-objection opinions.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment needs to support localities in speeding up the progress and procedures in extending the capital allocation time to avoid affecting the project disbursement progress; provide clearer guidance to localities on the authority to approve project adjustments for ODA projects implemented at many agencies.

In addition, localities also need to conduct detailed and specific reviews and assessments of the disbursement capacity of each project, paying special attention to projects whose planning year is the final disbursement year to ensure sufficient capital for the projects, avoiding the need to extend disbursement, extend implementation time, and generate many administrative procedures.

“In cases where it is impossible to complete the project volume according to the set schedule and it is necessary to cut or transfer the assigned capital plan, a written proposal to cut, reduce or transfer must be sent to the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance before June 30, 2024 for coordination in implementation,” the representative of the Department of Debt Management and External Finance stated.

2024 is the fourth year of implementing the 5-year Socio-Economic Development Plan 2021 - 2025, a very important year in creating a breakthrough and positive change in implementing the goals of the Socio-Economic Development Plan and the Medium-term Public Investment Plan for the period 2021 - 2025. Accelerating the implementation and disbursement of public investment capital is of great significance, contributing directly to promoting domestically produced goods, developing infrastructure, removing bottlenecks for development, helping to develop the economy quickly and sustainably. Therefore, the Ministry of Finance and ministries and branches need to closely monitor and resolutely implement solutions to accelerate the disbursement of public investment capital, striving to achieve a disbursement rate of at least 95% of the capital plan as set out in Resolution 01/NQ-CP of the Government.