HCMC – Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has said tough measures should be taken to deal with officials who have a low sense of responsibility or avoid solving difficult matters by passing on them to higher levels of administration.

Speaking at the fourth meeting of the steering committee for administrative reform today, April 19, PM Chinh, also head of this committee, said some agencies had been way too slow in reviewing those legal documents that have impeded social and economic activities.

The paperwork requirements in certain fields of administration, such as fire prevention, public investment, land and land clearance, are still overlapping and obstructing activities of businesses and households. Business regulations have remained complicated while few ministries have presented plans for streamlining business approval processes. Ministries have been late in issuing house rules for handling administrative procedures.

This is evident in the low proportion of people using online administrative services (at 57.8%), the high percentage of files that have passed the deadline for review (at around 34%), the slow digitalization of files and those solved, and the lack of detailed guidelines for online paperwork.

Multiple ministries, agencies and local governments have yet to build information systems to facilitate the digital handling of administrative procedures. They even have low levels of preparedness for IT application and are not ready to share data and information with one another.

PM Chinh said that at some agencies, their leaders have a low sense of responsibility.

Administrative reform is to invest in future growth and development, so businesses and households should be put at the center of their services, he said, reiterating the role of leaders, the coordination between ministries and local authorities, and the inspection and supervision of public administration.

In certain cases, tough measures will be taken to discipline officials who fail to perform their duties while protection must be extended to officials who dare to think out of the box, do what is difficult and take responsibility for what they do for the common good, PM Chinh said.