During the recent session, Vietnam’s rubber-stamped National Assembly issued Resolution 105/2023/QH15 on central budget allocation. Notably, spending for the Ministry of Public Security next year is more than VND13 trillion, higher than this year. Specifically, in 2023, the ministry got VND99.95 trillion.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and Training can only spend an extremely modest amount of VND7.7 trillion. This spending level is only 1/16 of the spending level for the Ministry of Public Security. The Ministry of Education and Training is very distraught with the situation of gouging students with all kinds of fees, the reason is also because the budget for education is too small. Schools must find ways to squeeze money out of pockets of students’ parents.
To innovate education, many things need to change. However, the budget for education cannot be meager but can be reformed. Therefore, with such trickle-down spending on education, it shows that the Communist Party does not care about education. Even if the education system is ruined, let it exist on its own as it has always been. Officials’ children are mostly allowed to study abroad with corrupt money, so they don’t need to innovate education in a more progressive direction.
Spending on the Ministry of Health next year is also extremely pathetic, only VND7 trillion, equal to 1/16 of that of the Ministry of Public Security. Currently, Vietnam is seriously lacking hospitals. However, many hospitals are built and then abandoned, which is very wasteful. Not only does it lack hospitals, but Vietnam also lacks medicine and necessary medical equipment. With this way of spending the budget, the Communist Party shows its attitude towards the people very clearly, that they only collect taxes from the people and do not care about their welfare.
The Central Government also approved the 2024 budget for the Defense Ministry with a huge amount, up to VND207. 58 trillion, equivalent to $8.65 billion, an increase of nearly $1 billion compared to last year. The Defense Ministry is where the characters in the Four Pillars compete. The prosecution of Nguyen Thi Thanh Nhan was partly due to competition for a piece of cake within the ministry.
According to internal information, the Ministry of Public Security and the Defense Ministry are the most corrupt places. Central interest groups approved pouring a lot of money into these two ministries, then big figures in the Politburo took the money back through the back door.
There is an extremely funny expense, which is for the Vietnam Disabled Children Relief Association, only VND2.69 billion. It is unclear with this small amount of money, what can this association do for disabled children? Even though we know that the associations set up by the Party are useless, they only take budget money to divide among themselves, and do nothing to help society. However, the amount of money spent speaks volumes about the government’s attitude towards the people.
Many countries around the world are aiming to build a prosperous and peaceful society for its people, based on trust and honesty. It is a society where leaving the car on the street is not afraid of being stolen, or forgetting to lock the house when going to work is not afraid of thieves opening the door. Farmers sell goods by dividing them into parts and setting prices, then buyers take and put the money in the box themselves, without the seller having to look after the goods. Such a society brings people peace and safety. In such a society, the state could reduce the number of police and increase spending on welfare.
The education sector and the health sector belong to the two core sectors of welfare. In developed countries, the budget spent on these two sectors is very large, because the state provides it completely free of charge, or subsidizes it for the people. Countries with free healthcare and free education all have very high budgets for these two sectors, many times higher than the police sector.
In Vietnam, spending on health and education is stagnant, while spending on police is skyrocketing. That shows that the Communist state is a state that does not want to progress or cannot progress.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
