Practising thrift and combating wastefulness are an urgent task

The urgent matter now is that in order to successfully implement its socio-economic development tasks, it is necessary to ensure the long-term resources for fighting against the pandemic.

As the Government has a limited budget and has had to mobilise contributions from the people and enterprises for the vaccine fund, it is necessary for the whole country to focus on practising thrift, combating wastefulness and corruption, in order to accumulate resources.

Wasteful spending and placing little importance on practising thrift remain rife at many local governments, units, ministries and agencies, especially in the implementation of projects and tasks funded by the state budget. Wastefulness can also be seen publicly in ways such as cumbersome apparatus, labyrinthine administrative procedures, incompetent and irresponsible officials, among others.

Although the Party has insisted on fighting both corruption and wastefulness, many in leadership positions still take the harm of wastefulness lightly, considering it a minor flaw. That is why wastefulness is still condoned and is silently causing serious harm to the country.

Stronger measures to deal with wastefulness effectively are needed more than ever so as to have more resources for the fight against the pandemic and to rejuvenate socio-economic development.

In order to achieve these goals, ministries and functional agencies need to be resolute in slashing administrative procedures, holding individual officials accountable and increasing the use of technology in their leadership and operation.

Projects that have fallen behind schedule and incurred losses for years need to be brought to a close quickly so that taxpayers’ money will not be further wasted.

One of the matters in need of most attention is seriously punishing individuals and groups who have caused the loss of public funds and committed acts of corruption during the implementation of such projects.

For their part, ministries, agencies and local authorities need to practise substantive thrift by reducing and phasing out superfluous ceremonies, considering the results of economy as a criterion for performance assessment and promotion.

It is also necessary to commend examples in practising thrift and combating wastefulness in a timely manner, protect whistle-blowers who tip off the authorities about acts of wastefulness, step up inspections and auditing, and penalise those breaking the laws on practising thrift and combating wastefulness.