- by Sebastian Peady
- The Guardian
- Issue #2175
Photo: rawpixel.com (CC0)
Major reforms have been passed by the National Assembly of Vietnam, set to bring about the greatest changes to the nation’s government since its victory over the United States in 1975.
At that time Vietnam was establishing a new government, after being devastated by the war waged on it by the United States. Much of the country’s infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, had been destroyed. Vietnam had to rebuild its entire transportation and communication networks from scratch. Landmines, bombs, and hazardous chemical littered, and still litter, the country. Vietnam lacked the technology, education, and infrastructure for a coordinated centralised government.
In order to make the government more flexible under these conditions, the country was divided into 63 provinces, covering smaller geographic areas and containing smaller populations. 63 provinces is a considerable number of divisions for a country with the area and population of Vietnam. For comparison, the United States, with over three times the population and almost thirty times the area, has only fifty states.
The government was designed with four administrative levels; commune and ward (these are the same level, the difference being the former is rural while the latter is urban), district, province, and national.
Communes deal with basic tasks such as conducting background checks for local citizens, and implementing new policies and laws received from higher levels of administration. While communes can make suggestions concerning policies to higher levels, they have had no real authority over policies. The tasks communes carry out are of immediate, local concern to the citizens. In this way, perhaps the best comparison to Australia would be that of a local council.
The next level up from commune is district. The district level handles more important tasks, such as managing the budget distributed to them by the national government, providing ID cards, and managing land rights.
Next up from the district level is the provincial level. The provincial level suggests policies and laws to the National Assembly to discuss and vote on, and then ensuring such laws and policies are implemented at the lower levels.
The district level functions as a middle manager between the local commune level and the higher provincial level. Once necessary, it has now long outlived its usefulness, and has caused unnecessary and counterproductive bureaucracy.
That’s how the Vietnamese government has run since the victory over the US. But the district level layer has caused much frustration for the Vietnamese people.
RESPONSIVE
Now, the district level is being entirely eliminated, and local government is being transformed into a more decentralised two-tier model. The provincial and commune levels are being empowered, as embodied by the slogan “what the local level manages, the local level decides.” Commune levels and their leaders will have authority over relevant local matters, such as land reform, finance, education, and environmental policies, and the authority to plan and allocate resources. Commune levels will see a doubling of staff size.
The commune-level People’s Councils, locally elected legislative bodies, are also seeing positive reforms. They will have expanded responsibility and authority over local budgets, public infrastructure, law enforcement, administrative services, social welfare services, and economic initiatives. Without needing approval from higher levels, this gives communes significantly more flexibility with how they manage local concerns.
By granting communes more power and authority, these changes will allow for more transparency with the Vietnamese people. Previously, communes were often unable to explain decisions, as they were not the ones making those decisions. Now they are. Furthermore, communes must now hold regular public dialogues, disclose public budgets, and respond to complaints.
These changes will arguable make the commune level arguably the most important level of government.
Land administration is changing too. Land is collectively owned in Vietnam, and land usage is strongly supervised and managed by the government. With the new reforms, local governments, provincial and commune, will have the authority to issue land use rights certificates themselves, and decide how land is used and managed locally.
The 64 provinces will be merged into a more reasonable and effective 34.
These changes will eliminate unnecessary and counterproductive bureaucracy, while simultaneously empowering people by granting them greater control over local matters.
These changes come after a great deal of self-criticism by the Vietnamese National Assembly.
