Recently, the Politburo and the Secretariat issued Conclusion No. 126-KL/TW on a number of contents and tasks to continue to arrange and streamline the apparatus of the political system in 2025; Conclusion No. 127-KL/TW on implementing research and proposing to continue to arrange the apparatus of the political system. Taking advantage of this issue, on a number of social networking sites, there are distorted arguments and fake information to oppose the Party and the State, causing public confusion.

Firstly, it can be affirmed that these are wrong views, deliberately distorting information or having incomplete and incorrect awareness of a part of society about the implementation of a major policy and political determination of our Party and State at present. Streamlining the organizational apparatus is a consistent policy of our Party and State, which is being implemented with a spirit of determination, drasticness and synchronization from the Central to the grassroots level to contribute to building and perfecting a clean, strong, streamlined, effective and efficient socialist rule-of-law state, serving the people and for the development of the country. Strengthening publicity, transparency, accountability, and control of power associated with tightening discipline and order in the activities of the State and of civil servants and public employees. Continuing to promote the fight against corruption, waste, bureaucracy, crime and social evils, initially bringing positive results, receiving the support of public opinion and cadres and party members.

Implementing the Government's decrees, from 2015 to December 15, 2023, the whole country has streamlined the payroll by 84,140 people. Most recently, the organizational structure of the Government for the 2021-2026 term has 17 ministries and branches (14 ministries and 3 ministerial-level agencies), a reduction of 5 ministries and branches compared to before; a reduction of 13/13 general departments and equivalent organizations, a reduction of 519 departments and equivalent organizations, a reduction of 219 departments and equivalent organizations, a reduction of 3,303 branches and equivalent organizations. Provinces and cities have reduced 343 specialized agencies and equivalent organizations under the provincial People's Committee; 1,454 specialized agencies and equivalent organizations under the district People's Committee.

After more than 7 years of implementing Resolution 18-NQ/TW, the organizational system of the Party, State, Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations of our country has been gradually innovated; the functions, tasks and working relationships of each organization have been defined and adjusted more reasonably, gradually meeting the requirements of building and perfecting a rule-of-law State and developing a socialist-oriented market economy.

However, speaking at the National Assembly's group discussion session, General Secretary To Lam pointed out the current situation of the Vietnamese political system being too cumbersome and overlapping, and this poses an urgent need to arrange and streamline the apparatus in the direction of streamlining - compact - strong - effective - efficient - effective, because if not promptly streamlined, it will hinder the country's development. The General Secretary pointed out the fact that 70% of the state budget is still used to pay salaries, regular expenses, and serve the operation of the apparatus. This means that only 30% of resources are left for investment, development, national defense, security, hunger eradication, poverty reduction, and social security. "The reason why salaries cannot be increased is because the budget for salary increase will increase by 80-90%, there will be no budget left for other activities." Therefore, the General Secretary suggested that it is necessary to look at the reality to continue to streamline the apparatus, reduce staff, and reduce regular expenses to reserve resources for investment and development. If the above shortcomings and limitations are not overcome, the country will not be able to develop to achieve the goal of becoming a developing country with modern industry and high average income by 2030; and becoming a developed country with high income by 2045 as set out in the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress. Therefore, continuing to resolutely implement Resolution 18-NQ/TW to streamline the organizational apparatus in accordance with new conditions and situations is an objective necessity, a practical requirement, the will and aspiration of the entire Party, the entire people, and the entire political system, and is absolutely not the "subjective will" of any individual.

Second, the view that civil servants working in the public sector due to limited qualifications and capacity when downsizing are supported with hundreds of millions, even billions of VND is unfair compared to those working outside the public sector. In fact, to reduce 50% of the number of provinces and cities; 60-70% of the grassroots level, the number of civil servants in agencies from the central to grassroots level will be quite large (the Ministry of Home Affairs estimates a reduction of about 20% of the payroll, equivalent to 100,528 people (excluding health and education civil servants) with a budget of about 130,000 billion VND from the state budget). After merging provinces, cities, communes, wards, arranging agencies according to vertical sectors..., the number of payrolls that must be reduced will increase. Thus, in order to achieve results in streamlining the apparatus and reducing staff, in addition to motivating and persuading the spirit of voluntary readiness, outstanding policies and incentives for civil servants and employees are the "key" to help clear the mindset in implementing effective streamlining and reduction.

The "revolution" of streamlining the state apparatus and political system has so far met practical requirements and has been agreed and supported by the majority of cadres, party members, and people. Efficiency, effectiveness, and efficiency... are the goals of the "revolution" of streamlining the apparatus. The results of the "revolution" will bring better service quality to people and businesses, reduce the burden of costs to have a larger budget for education, health care, social security, hunger eradication, poverty reduction, national defense and security..., so that the country has a new and abundant position and strength, can take off, and soon become a developed country with high income in the new era.

Of course, streamlining the organizational apparatus must go hand in hand with streamlining the payroll and restructuring the staff. In fact, except for a small number of civil servants and public employees who are old, have patchy qualifications, and cannot keep up with the development of science and technology, especially IT; the vast majority of civil servants and public employees at all levels today are basically trained, have high qualifications, professional skills and expertise; must pass many stages and many examinations to be qualified for a position in the state apparatus; many people are even "red carpet" candidates. Therefore, in addition to implementing regulations according to current laws, our Party and State are interested in and have appropriate policies to have civil servants and public employees voluntarily resign (retire early, resign) and a number of other appropriate related policies to ensure the rights of this group of people.

During the implementation process, many key leaders and cadres of the Party organization, provincial, district and commune government agencies voluntarily applied for early retirement; many of them have 8-9 years of work left, 2 full terms, and many opportunities to strive, which is very welcome and supported. This not only creates favorable conditions for the organization in the work of arranging cadres, but also demonstrates the sense of responsibility, pioneering spirit and exemplary role of Party members in implementing the Party's policies and the State's laws and policies for the current revolution of streamlining the organizational apparatus.

Third, regarding organizations and individuals who have to change documents and procedures due to administrative unit arrangement, there will be no fees or charges. The Central Steering Committee on summarizing the implementation of Resolution 18-NQ/TW issued Official Dispatch No. 43-CV/BCĐ on the Plan to continue to arrange the apparatus of the political system. It includes the content requiring the Central Public Security Party Committee to focus on leading, directing and urgently implementing "Advising the Government to supplement, amend, promulgate or the Ministry of Public Security to promulgate under its authority regulations and instructions on the implementation of public services, social management... according to the functions and tasks of the Ministry of Public Security in the direction of providing online public services, digital services for people and businesses regardless of administrative boundaries, without collecting fees or charges (for organizations and individuals who have to change documents and procedures due to administrative unit arrangement) (to be completed before June 30, 2025)".

Streamlining the apparatus, in a simple and easy-to-understand way as General Secretary To Lam said, is "Light to take off", or as our predecessors said, "Better less but better". Obviously, the viewpoint of "Refining - compact - strong - efficient - effective - effective" and the drastic direction of our Party, the participation of the entire political system have shown the great political determination of our Party and State. The policy of arranging and streamlining the apparatus organization has achieved absolute unity in both perception and action, receiving high consensus and support from the entire political system and the whole society. That practice has affirmed the truth: This is a completely correct, timely, progressive, humane, objective and scientific policy, because it meets the urgent demands of real life and fully converges "The Will of the Party - The Aspiration of the People". In essence, it is a human resources revolution, aiming to comprehensively reform the organizational apparatus, contributing to "unleashing" the productive forces, liberating the productive forces, creating conditions to exploit and maximize human resources, creating a position and strength for the whole nation to transform and make a strong breakthrough, so that our country will officially enter the era of national growth, together towards realizing the noble and great goal of the nation: Building a socialist Vietnam, a rich people, a strong country, fairness, democracy, civilization, soon standing shoulder to shoulder with the world powers as wished by President Ho Chi Minh.

Hoang Dai Duong (Provincial Party Committee's Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Department)