After more than half a day of urgent, scientific and serious work, the 26th session (special session) of the 14th term Quang Ninh Provincial People's Council has successfully concluded. Clearly demonstrating the sense of responsibility towards voters and people of the whole province, the session is not only a regular event but also a particularly important milestone, marking a new step forward in the "revolution" of rebuilding the local government apparatus; towards streamlining, effectiveness and efficiency, for the sustainable development of the province and the country.

Ready for the "reconstruction" of the apparatus

The 26th session - the thematic session of the 14th Provincial People's Council took place in the context that the whole country in general and Quang Ninh province in particular are urgently implementing the revolution of streamlining the organizational apparatus and are determined to achieve the growth target. The session reviewed and approved 9 important Resolutions. In particular, many urgent issues were decided to serve the revolution of arranging and streamlining the organizational apparatus, unleashing resources to promote economic growth in 2025 to meet the very high requirements of the country in the new era.

Notably, the Resolution approved the policy of rearranging commune-level administrative units in Quang Ninh province. This is a very important content, a step to concretize the major policies of the Party, the State and the province to innovate, rearrange the organization of the local government apparatus to be streamlined, operate effectively, efficiently, and effectively, in accordance with the criteria and scale to organize according to the 2-level local government model. According to the Resolution, the proposed plan to rearrange commune-level administrative units of the province is to reduce from 171 to 51 units, including 27 wards, 21 communes, 3 special zones (Van Don, Co To, Mong Cai), a reduction of 120 units, reaching a rate of 70.17%. In case Mong Cai special zone is not established, Quang Ninh province will have 54 administrative units, including: 30 wards, 22 communes and 2 special zones (Van Don, Co To), a reduction of 117 units, reaching a rate of 68.42%. This is a high rate, contributing to streamlining the apparatus, reducing budget expenditures, and improving the operational efficiency of local governments.

Delegate Lai Thi Hien, Delegate Group of Tien Yen - Binh Lieu - Ba Che, affirmed: I agree with the issuance of this Resolution because this is to implement the major policy of the Party and Government in streamlining the organizational apparatus, improving the effectiveness and efficiency of state management and creating momentum for socio-economic development. The arrangement of commune-level administrative units is an urgent requirement, contributing to reducing budget expenditures, concentrating resources, expanding development space, attracting investment, promoting growth, shifting economic structure and resolving shortcomings in administrative boundary management. This is also an important preparation step, creating a legal foundation for urban planning, associated with ensuring national defense and security and in line with the policy of promoting decentralization and empowering local authorities, laying the foundation for the breakthrough development of Quang Ninh in the coming years.

Many delegates also expressed their agreement and appreciation for Quang Ninh's methodical and rigorous approach, from the preparation process, collecting public opinions, to ensuring historical, cultural, geographical, and local customs factors, with a consensus rate of over 99%.

Delegate Nguyen Mai Hung, Head of the Examination and Quality Assurance Department (Ha Long University), Uong Bi Delegation, emphasized: In the past time, under the leadership of the Provincial Party Committee, the Provincial People's Committee has directed localities to fully comply with the procedures prescribed in the Law on Organization of Local Government 2025 and related resolutions to develop a project to rearrange commune-level administrative units. The project to rearrange commune-level administrative units was consulted with opinions from many levels and sectors, approved by the People's Council at the commune level with absolute consensus, and approved by 99.53% (of the total number of votes issued) of voters. This result demonstrates the high political determination of Quang Ninh province in implementing the policies of the Party and State on innovating the organization of the local government apparatus towards streamlining and efficiency.

In addition to the content of the arrangement of commune-level administrative units, the meeting also passed many other important resolutions on the medium-term public investment plan for the period 2021-2025; the public investment plan for 2025 from the provincial budget; supplementing a number of mechanisms and measures for operating the local budget in 2025 and approving the list of land lots for bidding for projects using land; works and projects for land and forest recovery and conversion in the second phase of 2025 to ensure the rational and effective use of resources, as a basis for implementing socio-economic development projects and works, prioritizing capital allocation for newly started projects and works, urgent to serve social security, socio-economic development, contributing to the growth target in 2025 and the following years of the province.

Along with that, the Regulation on authority to decide on the procurement of assets for science and technology tasks was unanimously approved at the meeting, contributing to concretizing the policies of the Central and the Provincial Party Committee on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and digital transformation; removing bottlenecks in resources in science and technology activities and transformation...

Realize your dreams, create your future

With the highest sense of responsibility and political determination, along with absolute approval of the draft resolutions submitted to the session, the delegates of the Provincial People's Council expressed their views and offered their enthusiastic and quality suggestions to contribute to the serious, timely, drastic, synchronous and effective implementation of the resolutions of the Provincial People's Council.

Giving advice at the meeting, Provincial People's Council delegate Dao Bien Thuy, Vice Chairman of Dam Ha District People's Council, Hai Ha - Dam Ha Delegation, said: In order for the new commune-level administrative units to operate effectively, it is necessary to prepare well the plan for arrangement, organization of the apparatus, arrangement of cadres, civil servants and public employees to ensure that the local government operates smoothly, effectively and efficiently from July 1, 2025; handle administrative procedures for people and businesses to ensure continuity and without interruption. The Provincial People's Committee should soon direct the review and adjustment of the commune-level planning until 2030 (with a vision to 2050), the Land Use Planning for the period 2021-2030; have policies for localities to review and arrange villages and areas to suit the new commune and ward administrative units. Through studying the new administrative units of the localities of Tien Yen, Binh Lieu, Ba Che, Dam Ha, Hai Ha, Mong Cai, all of which have communes in difficult areas with a large number of ethnic minorities, I think it is necessary to issue specific mechanisms to support difficult communes and ethnic minority areas such as developing afforestation, agriculture, supporting jobs, health insurance, mechanisms to encourage the strong development of community tourism products...; have mechanisms to support cadres and civil servants working in difficult communes and ethnic minority areas.

Faced with concerns about administrative boundary division, difficult transportation, geographical distance between households in rural mountainous areas; ensuring uninterrupted settlement of administrative procedures for people; staff arrangement; handling of surplus assets... when implementing the plan to arrange commune-level administrative units, a number of delegates also proposed many specific solutions to quickly resolve and implement the plan to merge communes and wards.

Delegate of the Provincial People's Council La Thi Thuy, Head of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Tien Yen district, the delegation of Tien Yen - Binh Lieu - Ba Che proposed: It is necessary to study, review, amend, supplement and issue documents guiding the adjustment of administrative procedures and documents, and regimes to ensure convenience for the people. In addition, it is necessary to review, adjust and supplement regulations on titles, quantity and allowances for the team of civil servants who work part-time at the commune level after the merger; it is necessary to have appropriate solutions to handle the problem of surplus cadres and civil servants when arranging the apparatus and streamlining the payroll. In particular, it is necessary to pay attention to building policies with appropriate financial mechanisms and economic conditions of the province to encourage cadres and civil servants to retire early, quit their jobs to ensure stable lives and create new jobs.

Some delegates also said that it is necessary to strongly and clearly decentralize and delegate power to new administrative units in economic management, budget, capital construction investment, land and some other areas to resolve voters' activities; develop specific and clear operating regulations; assign appropriate tasks to each cadre and civil servant to quickly stabilize government operations. At the same time, urgently review and re-evaluate all headquarters and public assets of administrative units after the arrangement to have a plan for reasonable use and arrangement to avoid waste.

Contributing and offering practical and effective solutions to unlock resources, promote economic growth in 2025; concretizing the policies of the Central and the Provincial Party Committee on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and digital transformation, at the meeting, many delegates said: It is necessary to ensure the rational and effective use of resources, prioritize capital allocation for new projects and works, urgent to serve social security, socio-economic development; remove bottlenecks in resources in science and technology activities and digital transformation...

Taking place in a very short period of time, with a large and especially important workload, the 26th Session clearly demonstrated the proactive and decisive role of the Provincial People's Council in deciding many urgent issues to serve the revolution of restructuring and streamlining the organizational apparatus; creating new momentum for economic growth, promoting the sustainable development of the province.

Closing the session, the Chairman of the Provincial People's Council, who chaired the session, requested all levels, sectors and localities to focus on directing the implementation of the Project on rearranging commune-level administrative units immediately after it is approved by competent authorities, ensuring the stability of agencies and administrative units after the rearrangement to operate smoothly and effectively, without interruption of work. At the same time, resolutely and effectively organize the implementation of the Central and provincial directions on tasks and solutions to promote growth and socio-economic development of the province in 2025 to achieve the growth target of 14% or more. In particular, it is necessary to effectively exploit new growth drivers and focus on implementing breakthrough tasks in science and technology development, innovation and digital transformation under the direction of the Politburo, the Secretariat, the National Steering Committee and the Government.

Thu Chung - Truc Linh