Businesses complain about state bureaucracy, administrative burdens

At many recent business forums and conferences, businesses said they are facing difficulties partially caused by the bureaucracy of state officers. 

A businessman said he came to a local department to submit an application for a real estate development project, but the dossier was not accepted despite several updates.

“They (state officers) refused to take our application because they would have to respond within 15 working days under current regulations and clarify why the application was refused. They anticipated that they definitely could not handle the application,” he said.

The problem is believed to exist in many localities, because similar stories have been related by other businesspeople.

Recently, a group of fuel retailers in many cities and provinces, lodged a complaint with state management agencies at different levels about unreasonable regulations on fuel distribution management, which has caused big losses to retailers and disruption of supply chains.

However, they have not received any reply and have not seen any moves from state management agencies to handle the case, except for some discussions presided over by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

Analysts believe that the problem lies in the current unreasonable framework. State officers don’t want to approve enterprises’ proposals as they fear they may violate laws.

At the National Assembly session last October, Nguyen Huu Thong, a National Assembly deputy from Binh Thuan, recalled a state official told him that he would rather stand before the disciplinary board (for being late in handling enterprises’ cases) rather than stand in court (for breaking the law).

“The reason behind this is the inconsistency of the legal system. An issue can be right if referring to a law, but be wrong if referring to another law. It could be right at this moment, but would be wrong at other times,” he said.

Le Thanh Van, a National Assembly deputy, said that an investor was encouraged to make investment in a province and the local authorities’ leaders offered a lot of incentives to lure the investor. 

But when the new leaders took the office, they judged that the investor "broke the law".

Nguyen Dinh Cung, a respected economist, said that after many business trips to localities, he found that many civil servants don’t want or dare to perform their duties and take the responsibility to which they were assigned.

The officials said that they  would rather be criticized for being slow in implementing my duties, than being disciplined and possibly criminally prosecuted. 

Some of their comments: “If I do this, I would be wrong, but if I don’t do this, I would also be wrong."  “We are afraid of legal documents which seem to be a trap for us." 

Some officials said that they even had deliberately set more technical barriers to people and businesses to feel more secure.

As such, state officials create difficulties for people and businesses rather than offer favorable conditions, and don't help solve enterprises’ problems.

In the past, ministries and agencies had the right to handle cases under law and jurisdiction assigned to them. But now, everything, especially anything related to investment, land and construction, will only be decided after consultation with all departments and agencies. As a result, it takes much more time to deal with a problem.

The decision making scheme based on the consensus principle has created cumbersome and time consuming procedures. 

Sometimes local officials are disappointed about the answers from central ministries and branches, because they are not clear and useful. In many cases, there is no final decision.

The problems faced by people and enterprises, in general, are not reported to higher-ranking officials until safe legal solutions are found. Lower-level staff do not report to superior leaders for direction.

As a result, thousands of projects do not undergo all necessary administrative procedures. The disbursement of public investment still proceeds at a snail’s pace though the government has set up many task forces that give directions and urge disbursement.

Private enterprises

In such conditions, the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics has sent a document to some agencies asking to consider a solution to develop private economic development as an important driving force of the economy.

This is a follow-up effort after Party Chief Nguyen Phu Trong signed Resolution No.10 on private economic development in 2017.

Economists point out that private enterprises still cannot grow, and the official business sector just makes up 10% of GDP, while the unofficial economic sector makes up more than 32%. This is, once again, attributed to the legal framework.