Socialist Republic of Vietnam

HA NOI — Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh told his Ha Noi constituency on Monday that he was delighted to hear their frank comments about national issues and local problems.

He said their recommendations were useful to the National Assembly and the State in dealing with urgent problems in the city and country.

Manh was one of many National Assembly delegates who are meeting with voters before attending the next assembly session, scheduled to begin on October 21.

Ha Noi is represented by 21 delegates in the 500-strong National Assembly.

The Ha Noi voters told Manh and other assembly delegates about what they considered to be the city’s most pressing problems.

These included land use rights, compensation for people forced to move to make way for new infrastructure and businesses, the generation of jobs for farmers forced off their land, corruption, wastefulness, social breakdown and traffic.

Voters raised corruption as the city’s most urgent issue and Manh agreed the fight against it must be persistent.

He underlined the need for closer co-ordination among authorities, the people and Party members to "root out bad elements".

Manh said Party officials, members and administrators should lead an exemplary life and they and their families should exercise self restraint against the temptations emerging from society.

Party members and officials found guilty of corruption, embezzlement and wastefulness should be duly punished according to the law, regardless of their social status, Manh said.

He told the residents, from Ba Dinh and Hoan Kiem districts, that the Party Central Committee is planning a mid-term review to analyse the reasons behind the successes and failures of the Party’s recent policies.

The mid-term review would devise specific solutions to ensure the Party and State’s objectives for 2001-05 were achieved.

He said Ha Noi, with its high economic growth rate, plays a very important role in fulfilling the 2001-05 plan.

Manh’s discussions followed reports delivered by two other assembly delegates — Ha Noi Police Department director, Pham Chuyen, and chief judge of the Ha Noi People’s Court, Pham Quy Tî.

Chuyen and Tî briefed residents about the progress of the Party’s five-year plan in the first nine months of this year, despite unfavourable conditions in the international arena.

They said the gains achieved had been made possible because of good Party leadership, well directed policies and the community’s hard work.

They praised Ha Noi’s contributions to projects for the upcoming Southeast Asian Games, to be held in Viet Nam in December.

The delegates predicted the upcoming assembly session would last for more than one month because it had to complete a bigger workload than usual.

They said lengthy discussions for nine draft laws due for approval and recommendations for six other laws under development, could also delay proceedings.

The upcoming session will be the first to allocate specific budgets to every State-funded body, under the new State Budgetary Law adopted in December last year. — VNS