The restructuring and streamlining of 30 teams are appreciated by civil servants

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Director Dinh Ngoc Thang talked with enterprises on the sidelines of the European Business Community Dialogue, September 5, 2018. Photo: T.H

As the largest local customs unit in the country, the organizational restructuring is in accordance with the Decision No. 2199 / QD-TCHQ of the General Department of Customs, HCMC Customs Department reduced 30 teams. Could you please tell what the unit has done to get the high consensus of civil servants?

After receiving Decision No. 2199 / QD-TCHQ, leaders of HCMC Customs Department had meetings with cadres subject to rearrangement to listen to their expectations. Some team leaders expressed their aspirations to move to the advisory divisions for Department’s leaders, others volunteered to move Branches to work as civil servant to promote their strengths, capacities and experiences for the purpose of building the professional apparatus and Customs civil servants. Through this organizational restructuring, the Department’s leaders paid a special attention to promoting young and female qualified cadres.

The process of organizational restructure by HCMC Customs Department was with the principles of democracy, publicity, transparency, science, reasonability; based on job requirements, working position, qualification and capacity of civil servants; ensured the stability, inheritance and development of the contingent of civil servants, while improving the quality and efficiency of the units.

After organizational restructuring, now, HCMC Customs Department has 13 Branches and 2 Control Divisions with 57 teams (a reduction of 30 teams). The number of Team leaders which are re-arranged due to the change in organizational structure includes 19 civil servants, of which 2 civil servants are appointed to hold higher positions, 2 civil servants resigned their positions and 14 others quitted their jobs due to their expectations.

How will this arrangement meet the work requirements of the unit, sir?

This organizational restructure of HCMC Customs Department closely followed Decision No. 2094 / QD-BTC dated 17 October 2017 of the Ministry of Finance on the issuance of criteria for establishment and restructure of Divisions under the Customs Branch and equivalent levels under the provincial and municipal Customs Departments. Clearly defining the functions, tasks, powers, responsibilities and relationships between units; resolutely eliminating unnecessary stages of organizational structure; eliminating duplication of functions and tasks of units; strengthening leadership and centralized management. Perfecting the structure on the basis of the requirements and tasks of building appropriate organizational apparatus; clearly defining functions and responsibilities for each unit; streamlining units to overcome the duplication of functions and tasks and to avoid missing tasks; supplementing the functions and tasks of the units in order to improve the quality of task performance of civil servants.

With the contingent of civil servants which has been newly arranged in a streamlined manner and with the priority for young and qualified civil servants, what is you expectation for this contingent?

With the contingent of civil servants which has been newly arranged in a streamlined manner and with the priority for young, qualified and female civil servants, I expect and believe that the newly appointed civil servants will meet requirements as follows:

Firstly, they will be self-aware, self-improving, learn and promote their strengths, overcome weaknesses to assert themselves well and accomplish assigned tasks. Each civil servant must have a specific program of action and ideas to further innovate working methods, who put work efficiency at the top and consider the work results as a measure for capacity.

Secondly, together with the unit's leaders, they will continue to promote Customs reform and modernization; to intensify the inspection and control in order to raise the management efficiency and contribute to combating the State revenue losses; to continue to build regular, professional, transparent and effective customs forces; to promote the tradition of solidarity and achievements to develop HCMC Customs Department meeting the requirements in the new phase.

Thirdly, upholding the role and responsibility of the head, attaching the responsibility of management and operation with the inspection, supervision and training of cadres and civil servants to properly perform their duties. Promote ideological and political education and coordinating with organizations (Party Committees, Trade Unions, Youth Unions, Women's Unions) to grasp the expectations and circumstances of civil servants in timely fashion, thereby encouraging and supporting spiritual and material aspects; as well as frankly criticizing and educating civil servants who show bad signs in the task performance.

Nearly one month to the end of 2018, how will HCMC Customs Department achieve the planned targets in the year, Sir?

As of 30 November 2018, HCM Customs Department has collected VND 96.481,536 billion, achieving 89.33% of the target of VND 108,000 billion. According to HCMC Customs Department’s estimation, as of 31 December 2018, the Department’s revenue will reach VND 108,010 billion, reaching 100.01% of the estimate. All the Department’s civil servants are trying their best every day, every hour to complete the assigned task at the highest level.

Sir, HCMC is implementing Resolution 54/2017 / QH14 of the National Assembly on piloting specialized mechanisms and policies; along with that the customs sector is stepping up the implementation of automated system for Customs management. With an important role in promoting the city's socio-economic development and customs modernization, what is HCMC Customs Department’s plan to deploy its 2019 tasks to meet this requirement?

The Party Committee, and the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City identified 2019 as "the year of administrative reform". In order to create the premise for implementing the above policy, in 2018, HCMC Customs Department has carried out many activities on administrative reform, such as executing and processing documents on the electronic document management system E -doc; completing the implementation of Customs automated management for 47 points till 30 November 2018 under the set plan.

In 2019, HCMC Customs Department will continue to implement and improve the above contents, while also introducing a number of specific measures such as: Determining to fulfil 2019 revenue target assigned, striving to achieve and increase by more than 3% compared with the revenue in 2018. Further reviewing and publicizing the administrative procedures, continuing to effectively implement the national single window, ASEAN single window, reducing the number of documents on a dossier; reducing the time and cost of customs clearance for businesses; proposing to boost the IT application in a deep and wide manner in the field of customs procedures. Intensifying the fight against smuggling and trade frauds and coordinating well with the competent forces in the area such as police, border guard and market management units at airports and seaports to share information and prevent acts of smuggling, trade frauds in a timely manner.

Speed up the reform of the apparatus is a key breakthrough

With these measures, we believe that HCMC Customs Department will contribute to successfully implementing Resolution No. 54/2017 / QH14 of the National Assembly on piloting specialized mechanisms and policies for the HCMC development.