Public investment law clarifies personal accountability

Wrong decisions on investment policies are considered one of the reasons for scattered investments in recent times, leading to State capital being lost or wasted. Therefore, the draft law clarifies the specific responsibilities of the persons authorized to decide investment policies, namely ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies and local government chairpersons, and those who make investment decisions. The persons responsible for deciding investment policies must consider if the projects are consistent with the planning and ensure efficiency and resources to implement the projects. Besides, they have to seek approval for their investment policies by submitting pre-feasibility study reports for group-A projects and reports proposing investment policies for group-B projects. In addition, to overcome the shortcomings in investment management, the draft law specifies new forms of management, consisting of investment trust, project completion assessment and project impact assessment. Moreover, there is currently no regulation on maintenance costs, leading to a rapid degradation of construction works. Therefore, the draft law supplements provisions on such issues. There are also additional regulations on project completion assessment and project impact assessment in order to clarify the responsibilities of those making investment decisions, the project owners and especially the consultants. The planning ministry also sought the Government’s approval for the scheme to introduce an act on public investment with a wide coverage to correct State capital investment activities. In particular, the act should impose regulations on State capital investment. The State capital includes the State budget, credit capital guaranteed by the State, the State credit capital for investment and development, capital for investment and development of State-owned enterprises and other funds managed by the State. This act will solve the problems of overlap and lack of synchronization, ensuring consistency in managing investment activities of State-owned enterprises. It will also cover all the State-funded projects and create a uniform policy on State capital investment, said the planning ministry. However, the ministry stressed this is not an easy task, saying that in order to make an act with such a wide coverage, it is necessary to review a lot of legal documents concerning investment activities to adjust or replace them in order to ensure their consistency with the act. The draft Law on Public investment has been initiated since 2007 with an aim to address problems and wrongdoings in public investment. The lack of sanctions for public investment has led to dispersed investment with low efficiency, causing losses and wastefulness and making it difficult to identify the relevant entities when violations occur.