What to do to make commune-level administrative units operate effectively after the merger? Part 3 - Overcoming the lack of infrastructure

Focus on infrastructure investment

Hai Duong is one of five provinces that have completed the construction of new rural areas since 2022. To date, the province has 65 communes meeting advanced new rural standards and 19 communes meeting model new rural standards. Therefore, the infrastructure in commune-level administrative units in the province is spacious and meets work requirements. However, when merging commune-level administrative units, some new infrastructure problems arise.

Gia Phuc Commune (Gia Loc) was established on the basis of merging Gia Khanh and Gia Tan communes. The new commune headquarters is located at the headquarters of the old Gia Khanh commune. According to Mr. Le Van Tho, Chairman of the Commune People's Committee, after nearly 5 months of merging, local activities have basically been ensured to be consistent.

However, people still have difficulties in traveling. Currently, people in the old Gia Tan commune who want to go to the new commune center must take a shortcut through the field connecting district roads 39E and 191D. This road is about 300 m long, narrow and can only be traveled by bicycle or motorbike, not by car. People traveling by car from the old Gia Tan commune to the commune headquarters must go around Gia Loc town, about 3 km further.

“The district has also had a policy to invest in the above road section, but due to waiting for the continued arrangement of commune-level administrative units, it has not been implemented. After completing the arrangement and merger, local officials and people hope that the road will soon be invested in and built to make travel more convenient,” added Chairman of Gia Phuc Commune People’s Committee Le Van Tho.

Tran Phu Commune (Nam Sach) was also newly established in December 2024 on the basis of merging Nam Trung and Nam Chinh communes. According to comrade Nguyen Van Ben, Secretary of the Tran Phu Commune Party Committee, one of the difficulties arising after the merger is the physical facilities. Due to the merger, the headquarters of the two units were merged into an existing old headquarters, so it was inevitable that there would be shortages. Typically, the meeting hall of Tran Phu Commune (using the old Nam Trung Commune hall) was quite cramped, and Party meetings had to be held at the multi-purpose hall of a local school. Some equipment, especially for handling work in a digital environment, is still outdated.

Mr. Ben believes that along with promptly resolving infrastructure limitations, after the arrangement of commune-level administrative units, it is also necessary to plan and invest in additional public works to contribute to improving the lives of people in new localities. Paying attention to investing in public works in places that are lacking such as parking lots, green parks, commercial and service establishments, etc. will provide additional amenities and improve people's lives.

The attention to investment in construction and renovation of commune-level administrative headquarters in accordance with the new organizational scale and convenient locations for officials and civil servants to work and people to do transactions is also the desire of many localities in the province.

Do well in "popular digital education"

Phuc Dien Commune (Cam Giang) was merged from Cam Phuc and Cam Dien communes from December 2024. This is a densely populated commune with many workers from other provinces residing and working. Present at the commune's "one-stop" department, we saw quite a lot of people waiting to resolve administrative procedures. According to the leader of the commune People's Committee, after the merger, the system of equipment and machinery, although old, can still be repaired, used and basically meet the work requirements. However, the commune currently does not have a specialized civil servant in charge of information technology, but this task is assigned to civil servants of the Commune People's Committee Office, who know "a little" about information technology.

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We support to help people do their work more conveniently and ensure faster processing of documents. If they do it themselves, it might take them all day to finish.

The biggest problem in Phuc Dien today is that people, especially the elderly, are still very limited in performing administrative procedures online. The situation where civil servants at the local "one-stop" department have to do it for people is quite common. In many cases, they have to collect cash for various administrative procedure fees and then pay online for people. These difficulties greatly affect the speed of administrative procedure processing. "We support to both facilitate people's work and ensure faster processing of documents. If they do it themselves, it may take a whole day to finish. When the merger continues, the number of documents will be larger, making it very difficult to do it for citizens like now," said Mr. Le Duc Tuan, a civil servant of Justice - Civil Status of Phuc Dien commune.

The difficulties in Phuc Dien are also common in most other communes, wards and towns in the province. A quick survey of some commune-level administrative units after the merger showed that along with the shortcomings in the machinery and equipment system, in the process of handling documents, there are still problems with transmission lines and specialized networks that affect the speed of processing transactions. One administrative procedure that is often delayed today is the issuance of electronic identification accounts.

According to the investigation of Hai Duong Newspaper reporters, certification is a procedure that accounts for a large proportion of administrative procedures under the authority of the commune level, accounting for about 60%. Many commune-level officials and civil servants believe that if the exploitation of data is more interconnected, the machinery system is more complete and modern, and the transmission system and software operate more smoothly, it will facilitate the operations of commune-level administrative units after the merger.

"Along with upgrading information technology infrastructure, the effective implementation of the "digital literacy" movement will help equip people with basic skills to perform common administrative procedure requests themselves," Mr. Hoang Le Phong, Chairman of the People's Committee of Hoa Binh commune - a commune established in December 2024 when merging Binh Dan and Lien Hoa communes (Kim Thanh) suggested.