The Government has to spend about 20 percent of national budget for construction regardless of investment by businesses and people. In the last four years (from 2010 to 2013), the State Audit of Vietnam proposed settling more than VND76 trillion, increasing collections and reducing spending by some VND26.5 trillion, and removing and modifying 180 legal documents.
Difficult to audit losses
Construction is regularly audited by the State Audit of Vietnam (SAV). In the latest four years (from 2010 to 2013), the SAV proposed financial settlement of VND5,122 billion, accounting for 6.71 percent of total financial settlement proposed by the SAV. Some errors and shortcomings in construction investment management were also mentioned by the SAV to assist the Government and other budgetary agencies to make timely corrections.
Construction is the connection of many related activities in various fields and many economic actors; thus, it is prone to uncontrollable negativity. Loss and waste are real, but no official count has been made.
To solve that basic issue, the SAV proposed noticeable solutions. The Government has to have close regulations on personal accountability to works assigned. It is necessary to define unit heads and define personnel accountability, not collective accountability, for a process. After that, it is necessary to review current regulations to make corrections so as to form a clear, explicable, transparent and appropriate system of construction investment management for domestic situations and international practices. In addition, Vietnam needs to recruit and train enthusiastic, professional, qualified and ethical appraisers, inspectors and auditors to perform their tasks while eradicating overlapping operations.
Enhancing State audit quality
To prevent waste and loss in construction investment, apart from improving mechanisms and policies on construction investment management, it is necessary to make clear the causes and responsibility of wrongdoing organisations and individuals
In addition to financial audit and compliance audit, the SAV should shift its focus to performance audit and publicise wrongdoings, audit results and responsibilities of organizations and individuals involved in order to create public pressures on units and individuals using State budgets.
Trinh Hai
Vietnamese
