HA NOI — The progress of public administration reform in Viet Nam during the past 10 years was slower than it should be and had not reached the initial overall goal, said general director of the Home Affairs Ministry's Public Administration Reform Department, Dinh Duy Hoa.

Hoa said that although there had been positive changes in public administration, the risk was that it could lag behind progress being made in other countries in the region and the world.

The department chief was speaking at a Public Administration Reform (PAR) Partnership Forum in Ha Noi yesterday.

Initial findings from an independent review on the implementation of the reform master plan 2001-10, conducted by the Development and Policies Research Centre, shows that nine objectives were just basically met or poorly implemented.

The findings, which included comments from six ministries and ministerial agencies and nine provinces and cities, showed that ministries were not really pro-active or creative in planning and implementing the master plan's objectives.

However, some places were exceptionally pro-active, including HCM City and Da Nang.

About half of the public cadres and civil servants surveyed said that the streamlined reforms did not influence their attitude, productivity or working motivation.

More than 60 per cent said their basic salary only covered daily needs including food and transportation.

The research centre recommended there should be structural changes in reform strategy, such as moving from multiple objectives to one with a concrete and focused objective - and from a single master plan to a dual approach for central and local levels with separate objectives, outputs and assessment indicators.

Hoa agreed that the low efficiency of the master plan could be partly blamed on the fact that there were too many objectives - and that it was too general and too ambitious. The objectives for the next phase should be more modest.

Jairo Acuna-Alfaro, United Nations Development Programme policy advisor on public administration reform, suggested that one strategic area for reform in the next 10 years could be in creating human resources based on performance and merit rather than on nepotism and patronage.

A national conference will be held in December to present the Government's review of the old and new master plans. — VNS