Lawmakers address voter fears over fees, social issues

update 10 oct 2011

mtonlawfirm.vn

Hanoi— Unreasonable school fees and other social issues were among the topics of petitions submitted to the Government and authorised agencies in the past year, members of the National Assembly Standing Committee heard yesterday.

The committee spent the morning reviewing a report on settlement of voter petitions to the 8th and 9th session of the 12th National Assembly.

National Assembly Ombudsman Nguyen Duc Hien said that, through September 23, 20 voter petitions had been submitted to the National Assembly so far this year, while 1,571 had been submitted to the Government, ministries and ministry-level agencies, with all but one resolved. Another 12 were submitted to the Supreme People's Court and 8 to the Supreme People's Procuracy.

Voters expressed a number of concerns about schools collected any number of addtional fees, besides standard tuition. Other petitions focused on implementation of poverty reduction and hunger elimination programmes in remote areas; policies relating to State officials and employees; administrative violations relating to health and inland waterway traffic; and inefficient energy usage.

Hien said that some voter concerns had not been properly resolved since many petitions crossed the jurisdictional boundaries of multiple ministries and agencies. Resolution of other issues was not clearly regulated by existing law, he said, posing challenges to relevant authorities

The National Assembly Standing Committee asked the Government, ministries, the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuracy to pay greater attention to properly responding to voter concerns.

The committee requested that the Ministry of Education and Training review regulations to ensure sufficient salary payment to teachers and prevent schools from trying to collect additional fees. It also ordered the ministry to step up audits on school fee collections.

The chairman of the National Assembly Committee on Culture, Education, Youth and Children, Dao Trong Thi, suggested that policies would be necessary to allow parent committees to act independently from schools, so that they could not be forced to pay unexpected forms of school fees.

National Assembly Standing Committee members also discussed yesterday the agenda for the remaining sessions of the 13th National Assembly, to 2016.

Law Committe chairman Phan Trung Ly said that the committee had received proposals to amend a133 laws, including 115 proposals from the Government alone – with the remainder suggested by deputies or members of the Supreme People's Court, Supreme People's Procuracy, or the Viet Nam Fatherland Front Central Committee.

The Law Committee had decided, however, that it would be unnecessary to revise certain laws in the near future, such as the Law on Administrative Decisions, since the Government was already making efforts to streamline administrative procedures.

Therefore, the Committee recommended an agenda including amendment of 126 laws and ordinances over the next five years.

Vietnamnews