'Too small' provinces should merge to add more space for development

Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Duc Cuong had an interview with reporters about the Central Government's orientation of merging provinces and eliminating district level.

In the Government's proposal submitted to the Politburo for consideration, there is a plan to reduce the number of provinces by 50% and the number of grassroots administrative units by 60-70%. As a researcher, what is your assessment of the current "revolution" to streamline the apparatus and political system?

I see that the implementation of streamlining the organization and apparatus is a revolutionary reform. Personally, I and the people strongly support this issue. As a historical researcher, I see this as a law-abiding action.

There have been many administrative reforms in history like today. Specifically, since the 19th century, King Minh Mang has carried out administrative reforms from the central to local levels. He divided the country into 30 provinces and one Thua Thien prefecture. Such reforms helped the agency system become tighter and more streamlined.

In 2017, the Party issued Resolution 18 on innovation and reorganization of the political system. However, for many reasons, the implementation of the resolution has not achieved many results.

In the current conditions, it is extremely necessary for the Party and State to resolutely implement the issue of innovation, arrangement and organization of the apparatus. Because most of the budget is spent on maintaining the apparatus, there are no resources left to invest in national development. Therefore, it is necessary to streamline the apparatus, reduce the number of administrative agencies, and merge agencies with similar tasks and jobs.

Specifically, it is reasonable for the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to merge with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs was established after our successful resistance war to save the country, and it is in great need of policy issues for veterans. However, now that we have unified the country for 50 years, it is reasonable to restructure and no longer have the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs.

Regarding the policy of merging some provinces, I see that our country has 63 provinces and cities, so it is necessary to summarize the issue.

There was a period after the resistance war against America to save the country, the Party and State merged a number of localities, for example: Ha Son Binh, Ha Tuyen, Hoang Lien Son, Minh Hai, Binh Tri Thien... but later, for many reasons, they were separated.

We see that many countries are larger and have a much larger population than Vietnam, but have fewer provinces and cities. From there, Vietnam can refer to their experiences to implement.

With the current socio-economic and information technology conditions, how many provinces and cities do you think we need to organize appropriately? When researching mergers, what historical and cultural issues should we pay attention to?

In my opinion, we cannot arbitrarily say how many provinces there are. But localities with too small areas and few resources for infrastructure, socio-economic development, human resources, etc. should be merged. Then the provinces will have more space to develop.

Besides, the merger must be based on research on many factors of geographical, economic, political, cultural and even community psychology conditions.

Regarding the names and places of the provinces after the merger, we must discuss carefully, because it is also a cultural factor as I mentioned above.

For some provinces with large areas and many conditions for development, the consideration of merging with other localities must be carefully researched and considered.

In reality, when restructuring the apparatus, there will be a lot of redundant staff. In your opinion, how should the authorities solve this problem?

We must face the truth that when we reorganize the apparatus, there will be a large number of redundant cadres. Therefore, we must carefully select those who meet the requirements and tasks of the new situation to be assigned to the apparatus from the central to the grassroots level. For those cadres who are not suitable, we can assign them to other jobs according to their abilities and strengths.

When reorganizing and merging, it requires the management capacity of local officials to be improved. Therefore, it is necessary to regulate the functions and tasks of the apparatus to closely match practical requirements.