A new draft decree will place stricter regulations to force the state-owned firms to disclose more information for better transparency.
State-owned enterprises face public scrutiny
Bui Van Dung, Deputy Director of the Enterprise Reform and Development Department, under the Central Institute for Economic Management has confirmed this decision.
The affected enterprises will have to make public details about their operations, such as the kinds and amounts of investments, debts, assets and transactions, as well as make periodic reports on their use of capital, land, human resource and wages.
These details must be updated to the Ministry of Planning and Investment's website, business.gov.vn.
Bui Quang Vinh, Minister of Planning and Investment said transparency plays an important role regulating the business environment. After several sessions of the National Assembly, the OECD principals for transparency for state-owned enterprises finally took the form of this draft decree.
"It's a difficult issue, since state agencies to monitor the state-owned enterprises and we don't have a specialised department for monitoring them, we have to monitor them while fulfilling the rest of our regular duties," said Tong Thi Minh, Head of the Ministry of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs' Department of Labour and Salary.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung also admitted that supervision has been weak.
The draft decree also said that directors of enterprises could be fired if they show two consecutive years of losses. But in reality there are many cases in which this does not happen. There are 10 state-owned groups who have racked up losses amounting to VND17.7 trillion (USD815 million).
The Government Inspectorate and State Auditing Office constantly discovers wrongdoings when carrying out their investigations, yet repercussions are rarely seen. Despite losses amounting to VND30.7 trillion reported in April of last year, no individual was held accountable.
Even after wrongdoings at the Song Da Group amounting to VND10.6 trillion were discovered, the Minister of Construction, Trinh Dinh Dung, made excuses for the company.
Nguyen Canh Viet, Head of Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) said that, though they sold numerous ships and reduced the number of branches, they still incurred a loss of VND2.4 trillion. He sent the Prime Minister suggestions for possible solutions, which included raising the group's chartered capital by 50%, or equitisation. The Ministry of Finance approved giving Vinalines priority loans, up to USD150 million for restructuring.
