DIRECTIVE
REGARDING THE RECTIFICATION AND STRENGTHENING OF DISCIPLINE AND ORDER IN THE COMPLIANCE WITH LAWS ON THE STATE BUDGET
Implementing the laws and resolutions of the National Assembly and the directives of the Government and the Prime Minister, in recent times, all levels and sectors have made efforts in the management of the state budget and achieved important results; budgetary discipline and order have been strengthened; many violations in budget management and use have been detected and handled promptly; mechanisms and policies on budget revenue and expenditure management have been amended, supplemented, and perfected, contributing to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of state management of finance and budget in general and the efficiency of state budget use in particular.
However, inspection results regarding the management and use of state budget funds and audits of state budget settlements show that violations of regulations and policies on budget revenue and expenditure management still occur in some ministries, sectors, localities, and units; investment remains scattered, investment efficiency is low, and outstanding debts for basic construction are still large; waste in the management and use of public assets, in organizing conferences, seminars, festivals, overseas business trips, etc., still occurs, affecting discipline and order in state management and the efficiency of using state financial and budget resources.
To overcome the aforementioned limitations and weaknesses, the Prime Minister requests that Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, government agencies, and other central agencies (hereinafter referred to as ministries and central agencies), and Chairpersons of People's Committees of provinces and centrally-administered cities (hereinafter referred to as localities) direct, guide, and inspect subordinate agencies and units to strictly implement legal regulations, rectify and strengthen discipline and order in the management and use of state budget, Prime Minister's Directive No. 33/2008/CT-TTg dated November 20, 2008, on the strict implementation of fiscal policy and the conclusions and recommendations of auditing and inspection agencies (Directive 33/2008/CT-TTg). In particular, focus on effectively carrying out the following key tasks:
1. Regarding institutional improvement
a) The Ministry of Finance shall preside over and coordinate with ministries, central and local agencies to continue reviewing, developing, and perfecting the legal system on state budget revenue and expenditure, management and use of public debt and public assets according to the legislative program of the National Assembly and the Government; practicing thrift, combating waste, and preventing and combating corruption.
b) The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall take the lead and coordinate with ministries, central and local agencies to urgently review, develop, and improve the legal system on public investment.
c) Ministries, central and local agencies:
– Continue to review, amend, supplement, issue, or submit to competent authorities for issuance regulations, standards, and norms for the use of public budgets and assets to conform with general legal regulations and management practices at agencies, units, and localities; abolish regulations that are beyond authority or contrary to regulations of higher levels.
– Continue to review and coordinate with relevant ministries, sectors, and localities to submit to competent authorities for promulgation all regulations and guidelines for implementing the autonomy mechanism for public non-business units.
– Minimize the proposal and issuance of new policies that reduce state budget revenue; only issue new budget expenditure policies when absolutely necessary and when funding is guaranteed.
2. Strengthening the management of state budget revenue.
a) The Ministry of Finance shall preside over and coordinate with ministries, central and local agencies.
– Effectively implement tax laws and state budget revenue collection tasks, ensuring the correct, complete, and timely collection of revenue into the state budget as prescribed; promptly handle, in accordance with regulations, temporary collections, temporarily withheld amounts, declared taxes that are overdue, and hidden tax evasion discovered and recommended for collection into the state budget by inspection and auditing agencies.
– Strengthen tax inspection and audit work, post-clearance inspection, focusing on key businesses, sectors, and goods with high risk levels; increase the percentage of businesses subject to tax inspection and audit; promptly detect and handle cases of incorrect declarations, tax fraud, tax evasion, and transfer pricing; intensify efforts to prevent and combat trade fraud, prevent revenue losses, and strictly control state budget revenue, especially revenue collected under the lump-sum method; and strictly control customs valuation.
– Focus on handling and recovering outstanding tax debts, assigning specific debt collection targets and monitoring and inspecting the implementation situation for each local Tax Department and Customs office, limiting the 발생 of new tax debts; strictly control tax refunds, ensuring they are granted to the correct recipients and in accordance with the law; strengthen the inspection of the operations and compliance with the law by tax and customs agencies.
– It is strictly prohibited to collect taxes in violation of tax laws and related legal regulations; to improperly allocate revenue between different levels of government budgets; to retain budget revenue improperly; to arbitrarily impose fees contrary to legal regulations; and to allow revenue outside the state budget in violation of regulations.
b) Ministries, central and local agencies shall closely coordinate with tax and customs agencies to strengthen revenue management, combat revenue loss, smuggling, trade fraud, tax evasion, and handle outstanding tax debts; collect amounts due as recommended by auditing agencies, conclusions of inspection agencies and law enforcement agencies; and ensure the correct, complete, and timely collection of all revenues arising in accordance with the law.
3. Regarding the management of state budget expenditures.
a) Ministries, central and local agencies:
– The preparation and approval of annual state budget expenditure estimates within the scope of authority must closely adhere to the objectives, orientations, and requirements of the 05-year state financial and budget plan, the 03-year state financial and budget plan, and the medium-term public investment plan, based on the policies, regulations, and expenditure norms of the state budget and the socio-economic development tasks approved by competent authorities for the budget year; the allocation of state budget expenditures in general and expenditures for investment programs and projects using state budget capital in particular must be within the scope of authority, clearly identify the funding sources, and be within the limits of available resources, ensuring strict control, economy, and efficiency; and ensure the balance of the local budget in the medium term.
Ensure the allocation and disbursement of state budget expenditures are carried out on time, according to content, target groups, and sectors as prescribed; guarantee funding for important and urgent tasks/projects, and proactively allocate funds to repay advanced funds and settle outstanding debts as required.
– Manage expenditures within the allocated budget, adhering to standards, norms, and regulations; thoroughly economize and improve the efficiency of budget utilization. Strictly control and comply with regulations, limiting advances from the state budget and reducing the amount of expenditure carried over to the following year. Strengthen discipline in the management and use of public investment capital; thoroughly address and prevent the accumulation of outstanding debts in basic construction projects.
– It is strictly prohibited to make expenditures outside the approved budget, expenditures that violate the law, or to use the budget for loans or advances for purposes that are contrary to regulations.
b) The Ministry of Finance shall closely coordinate with ministries, central and local agencies to strengthen inspection, supervision, and implementation, ensuring transparency in the use of state budget funds, and guaranteeing that state budget expenditures are in accordance with the approved budget, regulations, standards, and spending limits, as well as legal provisions. Strict financial penalties shall be imposed in accordance with regulations on violations of state budget and asset management discovered and recommended by auditing and inspection agencies.
4. Strengthen management and strict control of public debt, government debt, national foreign debt, and local government debt, and ensure sufficient and timely debt repayment.
a) The Ministry of Finance shall preside over and coordinate with ministries, central and local agencies to strictly control loans; minimize the granting of government guarantees for new loans; and not convert loan funds for relending or government guarantees into state budget allocations.
b) Local authorities shall mobilize resources to offset local budget deficits within the limits of the budget estimates decided by the National Assembly, allocate funds for interest payments within the local budget balance; and allocate funds for principal debt payments outside the local budget balance from borrowing, provincial budget surpluses, provincial budget reserves, and increased revenue and expenditure savings as prescribed.
5. Strengthen management and improve the efficiency of public asset utilization.
a) Ministries, central and local agencies:
– Urgently issue regulations stipulating the decentralization of authority in the management and use of public assets within their scope of management; standards and norms for the use of public assets; and a list of centrally procured assets as a basis for monitoring, managing, and using public assets within the agency and local area.
– Organize the review and reorganization of public assets to ensure their use is in accordance with the prescribed purposes, standards, and norms, and consistent with task requirements; accelerate the disposal of assets no longer needed to generate additional financial resources for the state budget to serve investment and development goals and other needs as prescribed; resolutely recover assets used for the wrong purposes, exceeding standards and norms; organize the disposal of assets in accordance with the law, openly and transparently, preventing waste and loss of public assets.
– Strictly comply with regulations on the use of public assets to pay investors when implementing investment projects in the form of build-transfer (BT) contracts, ensuring that the value of assets used for payment is close to market price, in accordance with the law, and preventing the loss of public assets.
– Effectively utilize public assets at public service units and infrastructure assets for business, leasing, joint ventures, and partnerships in accordance with the law on the management and use of public assets; terminate the use of assets for leasing, lending, joint ventures, partnerships, and business activities that are not in accordance with regulations.
– Invest in construction and purchase of automobiles and public assets in accordance with regulations, standards, and norms, ensuring economy, transparency, and openness; do not purchase expensive automobiles or equipment in violation of regulations.
b) Local authorities must strictly implement auction procedures when allocating or leasing land in accordance with the land law.
6. Regarding the settlement of the state budget.
a) Ministries, central and local agencies shall review, appraise, and report on the final accounts of the state budget of their subordinate budget-estimating units and lower-level budgets, and compile reports in accordance with the prescribed regulations and deadlines.
Direct and urge investors to promptly prepare final project settlement reports for projects and project/sub-project components using state budget investment capital. Prevent the backlog of completed state budget investment projects that are delayed in the preparation, appraisal, and approval of final settlement reports.
b) The Ministry of Finance shall guide and supervise people's councils at all levels in organizing the implementation of their duties and powers regarding the approval of state budget final accounts reports at their respective levels, as stipulated in the Law on State Budget.
7. Regarding strengthening supervision, inspection, handling, reporting, and public disclosure.
a) Ministries, central and local agencies:
– Strengthen internal inspection, examination, and auditing, promote transparency and accountability in the management and use of public funds and assets.
– Organize the review of responsibilities and promptly and strictly handle organizations and individuals who violate or allow violations to occur in the management and use of state budget and public assets; and those who are slow to implement the conclusions of inspection agencies and the recommendations of auditing agencies regarding violations occurring in the management of state budget revenue and expenditure under their assigned responsibilities. Reporting on the results of disciplinary actions against organizations and individuals shall be carried out in accordance with the regulations in Directive No. 33/2008/CT-TTg. At the end of each year, compile the results of disciplinary actions against organizations and individuals and send them to the Ministry of Interior for monitoring and compilation of disciplinary action implementation, and report to the Prime Minister.
Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government agencies and other central agencies, and chairpersons of People's Committees of provinces and centrally-administered cities are responsible to the Prime Minister for delays in implementing the conclusions of inspection agencies and recommendations of audit agencies regarding violations in the management of state budget revenue and expenditure and public assets under their assigned responsibility.
– Organize and direct the implementation of reporting on the results of handling the conclusions of inspection agencies, the recommendations of audit agencies, and the contents implemented according to the regulations of Directive 33/2008/CT-TTg and this Directive, submitting them to the Ministry of Finance at the same time as submitting the annual report on the state budget final accounts, the report on the results of practicing thrift, combating waste and preventing and combating corruption. Specifically, regarding the report on the results of handling the conclusions of inspection agencies and the recommendations of audit agencies related to capital investment in basic construction, it should also be sent to the Ministry of Planning and Investment for compilation and reporting to the Government. In the report sent to the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Planning and Investment must clearly state the shortcomings in financial and budget management that have been rectified, those that have not been rectified, and the time and measures to rectify them in the future.
b) In cases where ministries, central and local agencies fail to comply with the reporting requirements on the handling of inspection conclusions and audit recommendations as stipulated in this Directive, or if the progress in addressing violations is slow, the Ministry of Finance shall temporarily suspend the allocation of funds in accordance with the State Budget Law and guiding documents; and compile a report to the Prime Minister.
c) Ministries and central agencies assigned to manage sectors and fields shall annually compile and evaluate the results of implementing the budget estimates decided by the National Assembly, linking them to socio-economic tasks in each sector and field under their management, and send them along with the state budget final accounts report to the Ministry of Finance for consolidation and reporting to the Government and the National Assembly, together with the annual state budget final accounts report.
8. Organization of implementation
a) Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government agencies and other central agencies, and chairpersons of provincial and centrally-administered city People's Committees are responsible for organizing and directing the strict implementation of this Directive.
b) The Ministry of Finance shall preside over and coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to supervise and inspect the implementation of this Directive by ministries, central and local agencies; and periodically report to the Government annually along with the state budget final accounts report./.
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