HANOI, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Vietnamese ministries and localities have been told not to buy new cars in 2017 to cut public spending, according to an order by Vietnam's Ministry of Finance (MoF) on Monday.
Vietnamese MoF Deputy Minister Nguyen Huu Chi said the move aimed to tighten public spending and improve the effectiveness of using public property.
Instead of buying additional cars, ministries and localities should pay a travel allowance to officials who were previously eligible to use state-owned cars or to rent cars, said Chi.
Chi also ordered the ministries and localities not to use Official Development Assistance (ODA) and preferential and commercial loans to buy state-owned cars.
Management boards of foreign-aid projects which want to buy cars are required to submit detailed plans to the MoF for approval, Chi added.
Since March 1, 2017, the government of Hanoi became the first in the country to carry out a pilot program of offering travel allowances to officials.
The maximal travel allowance is 9.3 million Vietnamese dong (407 U.S. dollars) a month.
Mai Xuan Vinh, head of Hanoi Finance Department's Public Property Management Office, said redundant state-owned cars at the agencies would be handed over to the city administration, which would allocate them to other state agencies lacking state-owned cars. Schools and hospitals were among those on the priority list.
Data from the city's Finance Department showed Hanoi has about 400 state-owned cars, with the cost to run a car standing at 223 million Vietnamese dong each year.
The program is expected to save the capital budget 50 billion Vietnamese dong a year.
The city plans to introduce the program at all state agencies by October this year.
In a related move, the Party Committee of Vietnam's central Da Nang city has returned a five-seated Toyota car presented to it by a local company, following an order by Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc.
The Toyota Avalon Limited had been used to shuttle Da Nang Party Committee's Secretary Nguyen Xuan Anh.
The car was returned to the company in early March, three days after a regular government meeting where Phuc asked local authorities not to accept expensive cars as gifts. (1 Vietnamese Dong = 0.000044 U.S. dollar)
A single purchase
