People wait for their turn at the single-window unit of Hanoi's Long Bien district (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - Hanoi istaking action to improve administrative and governance efficiency in order toproactively meet the needs of local residents and thereby raise its ProvincialGovernance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) ranking in 2020and the years to come.
With 41.53 out of a total of 80 points, Hanoi’sposition in the 2019 PAPI remained unchanged from 2018, at 59th of the 63provinces and centrally-run cities in the country.
Facing this, Chairman of the Hanoi People’sCommittee Nguyen Duc Chung recently requested that all-level authorities andsectors in the capital work harder to promote performance in all eightsub-indexes: people’s participation at local levels, transparency, verticalaccountability, corruption control, public administrative procedures, publicservice delivery, environmental governance, and e-governance.
In particular, he asked authorities and sectorsto organise appropriate activities so that people can be involved in political,economic, and social matters and exercise their right to mastery, helpingimprove efficiency in policies and law enforcement.
They also need to ensure transparency in thedecision-making process, take on people’s opinions, denunciations and questions,and deal with public opinions in line with regulations.
Meanwhile, accountability to the public must beenhanced, Chung said, and he demanded more efficient contact methods betweenthe administration and the people, better reception of citizens, and the effectivesettlement of opinions, complaints, and denunciations.
He urged intensifying the fight against corruptionin all-level administrations and during the provision of public services,especially healthcare, education, and recruitment at State agencies.
Authorities and sectors in Hanoi were also toldto improve the handling of administrative procedures in State administrativeunits, in particular procedures relating to notarisation, constructionlicensing, the granting of land use right certificates, and commune-leveladministrative services.
The quality of essential public services mustalso be raised, including public healthcare, primary education, basicinfrastructure for electricity and clean water supply, transport, wastemanagement, and social order, he added.
He also required relevant agencies to be seriousin environmental governance and to carry out solutions to improve the livingenvironments.
Demanding stronger efforts in e-governance,Chung requested relevant agencies further assist the local population in accessingthe city’s e-portal and fulfil their responsibilities in replying to publicopinions via the portal.
The Hanoi People’s Committee has assigned theDepartment of Home Affairs to examine municipal agencies while not neglectingthose at the commune level, the chairman said, noting that the city will devisedetailed PAPI criteria for commune-level People’s Committees.
Meanwhile, administrations at the district andcommune levels must increase inspections of their subordinate units and swiftlyaddress errors and shortcomings.
Hanoi authorities are also going to step upadministrative reforms and eliminate unnecessary procedures in order to create optimalconditions for people and businesses and attract more investment.
Despite a modest PAPI ranking, Hanoi still stood second among the 63 localities in the Public Administration Reform (PAR) Index for three straight years, from 2017 to 2019.
To sustain and further promote this result, the municipal People’s Committee has asked local agencies to maintain their performance in the sub-indexes they have earned high scores while striving to boost the others so that the city will top the PAR Index list this year.
The 2019 PAPI report, released by the UNDevelopment Programme, interviewed 14,138 people randomly selected in all 63cities and provinces. The Mekong Delta provinces of Ben Tre and Dong Thap andnorthern Quang Ninh province, respectively, topped the rankings.
The report found that even before Vietnam became affected by COVID-19, poverty, economic growth and the environment were top concerns of citizens in the country
It also highlighted that the country made encouraging progress in governance and public administration performance to address citizens’ needs in the past year and delivers key insights into a broad spectrum of reform areas across nearly a decade. This stock taking will help inform decision-makers in 2020 – a pivotal year that will shape Vietnam’s future development agenda.
The voices of 131,501 citizens havebeen heard in annual PAPI reports since 2009./.
VNA
