The National Assembly on May 10 discussed the draft Law amending and supplementing certain provisions of the Planning Law in groups.

Man stated that this amendment aims to improve the integrated planning system, ensuring connection with national, regional, and provincial plans to avoid overlaps and contradictions. If approved by the National Assembly, local governance will be organized under a two-tier model, comprising provincial and commune levels, with communes including wards, communes, and special zones.

Bold decentralization

The National Assembly Chair stressed the need to clearly define coordination mechanisms among ministries, sectors, and localities in the formulation, appraisal, and approval of plans. He also called for enhancing sustainable development, climate change adaptation, digital transformation, and the application of AI in planning.

"For now, it is necessary to amend and supplement certain provisions to align with the organizational structure of the political system after the rearrangement and merger of administrative units. We must promote decentralization: what must be decided by the National Assembly, and what can be decided by the government, ministries, branches and localities,” Man said.

He said planning must be transparent. Information about plans must be publicly disclosed, and public opinions, especially from those to be covered by the planning, must be collected. An independent monitoring mechanism should be established to prevent arbitrary adjustments driven by groups of interests.

"In some cases, a plan set by the leadership of the previous tenure is amended by the leadership of the next term. Without transparency, openness, and consistency, plans will keep changing. Therefore, planning must be carefully calculated," Man said.

Regarding the plan implementation, he highlighted the need to strengthen enforcement and oversight mechanisms. The National Assembly, local People’s Councils, the Fatherland Front, organizations, and the public should monitor the process. Transparent and open planning that gains public oversight and consensus will lead to effective, feasible, and successful implementation.

On decentralizing authority for deciding, approving, or adjusting plans, Man called for bold reforms in line with the Party’s directives:

Decentralize the National Assembly’s authority to the Government to determine regions requiring regional planning and to decide on national marine spatial planning and national land use planning.

Decentralize the Prime Minister’s authority to ministers and provincial People’s Committee chairpersons to decide the list of priority investment projects in the implementation plans for national sectoral and provincial planning.

Decentralize the Prime Minister’s authority to ministers and provincial People’s Committee chairpersons to approve adjustments to sectoral and provincial plans for the 2021-2030 period to meet requirements for administrative unit rearrangements and the establishment of a two-tier local governance model.

Planning Law must be amended immediately

Finance Minister Nguyen Van Thang stated that the draft law includes additional provisions to address urgent issues. The amendment aims to ensure that planning at all levels can be adjusted after administrative unit rearrangements take effect, allowing localities to revise plans promptly.

"When administrative boundaries are adjusted and localities are merged, provincial planning must be revised; otherwise, localities cannot proceed with anything. Therefore, the Planning Law must be amended immediately to meet these needs, or everything will be stalled," Thang said.

Regarding decentralization, Thang noted that the draft law introduces stronger provisions, such as proposing to grant the Government authority to decide on national marine spatial planning and national land use planning, previously under the National Assembly’s purview. It also decentralizes authority to ministries to appraise sectoral plans and to provincial People’s Committees to appraise provincial plans.

The draft law also adds provisions allowing sectoral, regional, and provincial plans to be formulated simultaneously, addressing longstanding bottlenecks and accelerating planning without waiting for higher-level plans to be approved.

On resolving conflicts and overlaps between plans, Thang acknowledged this as a persistent issue. 

For example, some localities have transportation routes in their plans that overlap with mineral resource plans, making it difficult to determine which plan should take precedence. In some specific cases, local authorities report to the Prime Minister to decide which plan should be adjusted to avoid overlaps, but this approach is not comprehensive.

Thus, Thang said, the draft law needs to add principled provisions. In cases of conflicts or overlaps between sectoral or technical plans, the higher authority will decide which plan must be adjusted. The Government will provide detailed guidance in a decree, specifying principles and criteria for determining which plan should be adjusted when plans are at the same level.

Tran Thuong