The Party Central Committee Office on 19/6 announced the conclusions of General Secretary and President To Lam during a working session. This session reviewed one year of operating the overall organizational model of the political system and the three-tier government model.

General Secretary and President To Lam noted that despite initial achievements, many issues require review and amendment. While the apparatus has been streamlined, its operational quality is uneven. The number of organizational units has decreased, but management efficiency has not met expectations. Authority has been decentralized, but resources, capacity, and implementation tools are insufficient for new phase requirements.

To address these challenges, agencies are directed to study and propose the establishment of special, core urban administrative units. These units would coordinate development, connect infrastructure, public services, and key economic areas. This initiative aims to enhance state management effectiveness and leverage technological advancements.

Thu Duc City (former), TP HCM, 8/2024. Photo: Quynh Tran

According to the head of the Party and State, agencies must thoroughly evaluate the consistency, unity, transparency, and specificity of current legal frameworks. This is especially crucial for local government operations in science, technology, innovation, digital transformation, land, resources, minerals, forestry, finance, budget, decentralization, devolution, and the boundary of authority between central and local levels.

Localities need to specifically assess implementation capacity at the commune level against assigned tasks, particularly in land, construction, finance, justice, industry and trade, agriculture, environment, culture, and society. This assessment should link to staffing quotas, the number of specialized officials, and job placements aligning with professional expertise and practical demands.

The General Secretary also directed a clear identification of limitations and discrepancies between the prescribed model and the decentralization framework applied in diverse local realities. This includes differences in development levels, cadre capacity, geographical conditions, and infrastructure for transport and information technology, especially for communes categorized by urban areas, major cities, and distinct rural or mountainous regions.

The operational efficiency of judicial agencies after the cessation of three high-level courts, three high-level people's procuracies, and district-level courts and procuracies, needs thorough evaluation. The current state of digital, telecommunications, information technology, data, and specialized software infrastructure provided to local governments requires detailed assessment.

"An assessment must clarify the necessity of further adjusting and merging some communes and wards based on reviewing criteria for area, population, infrastructure, cadre capacity, and development requirements, to leverage the advantages of state management by scale and promote the application of information technology and digital transformation," the announcement stated.

Furthermore, General Secretary and President To Lam noted the need for a thorough assessment of risks: reforms merely reducing organizational units without enhancing service capacity; disparities in public service quality between large urban areas and remote regions; and local officials being overloaded, facing immense pressure, which could lead to fear of making mistakes and avoiding tasks.

Issues like new administrative boundaries not aligning with economic, urban, industrial zone, tourism, ecological, and development corridor spaces; and citizens having to travel further, facing harder, more time-consuming, and costly access to public services due to inefficient service point organization, also need to be identified.

From 7/2025, the entire country will merge, reducing from 63 provinces and cities to 34. Along with abolishing the district level, the country has also eliminated the models of cities belonging to provinces, cities belonging to centrally-run cities, and towns, urban districts, rural districts, and townships. 84 cities belonging to provinces, 53 towns, and two cities belonging to centrally-run cities (Thu Duc and Thuy Nguyen), all identified as district-level administrative units, will be abolished.

Currently, Vietnam has 7 cities: Hanoi, TP HCM, Hai Phong, Hue, Da Nang, Can Tho, Dong Nai.

Vu Tuan