W.Minh Tuan
Comrade General Secretary To Lam is showing himself to be an unexpectedly-surprising outstanding leader.
Why is it surprising?
Because when comrade To Lam was the Minister of Public Security, he only showed himself to be a discreet, gentle, and kind security officer, and only fulfilled his duties within his security scope.
No one knew that comrade To Lam had the ability to lead the economy, politics, diplomacy, cadre organization, state apparatus, education, health, etc.
Then the times turned, the country’s situation suddenly changed when the country’s number 1 previous leader suddenly passed away, suddenly placing comrade To Lam in the number 1 leadership position of the country, and comrade To Lam’s economic, political, organizational talents, etc. suddenly had the conditions to demonstrate themselves to serve the country, to serve the people.
No one could have imagined that after only a few months of leading the country, Comrade To Lam would dare to introduce an unprecedented change first time in the history of Vietnam over 4,000 years, which is to streamline the State apparatus, streamline local governments from 63 provinces and cities to 31 provinces and cities, and abolish district and county governments.
These are unprecedented changes in the 4,000-year history of the Vietnamese nation.
Only General Secretary To Lam would dare to think of these unprecedented bold reforms of Vietnam, and only General Secretary To Lam would dare to request the entire Party and State apparatus to study and quickly implement these unprecedented strong reforms.
General Secretary To Lam said very correctly: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, not waiting until after the Party Congress in 2026″.
That’s right, those who are afraid of conflict and difficulty have retreated, saying that we should wait until after the Party Congress in 2026.
No, General Secretary To Lam said, if we wait until after the Party Congress to reform the administrative apparatus, then the Congress will have just elected new cadres, and after the Congress, there will be reforms and changes, and there will be re-elections, and all political stability will be lost, how can we do it?
We must reform the State apparatus before the Party Congress in 2026, all reforms must be completed before the Party Congress, so that after that, the Party Congress will only institutionalize the administrative-apparatus reforms into the Party’s policies and guidelines, and elect new leaders in line with the administrative apparatus reforms.
That is the reason why General Secretary To Lam said “this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity”.
Because if we reform the administrative apparatus after the Party Congress, it will never be done, and even after a thousand years it will still not be done.
And we must reform the administrative apparatus quickly, because there is only more than 1 year left until the Party Congress in 2026.
Merging some Ministries, leaving 14 Ministries as of February 2025 is a good reform, but not enough, we need to further reduce the Ministries, only about 10 Ministries is enough, like Japan today.
We already have a Ministry of Public Security with all the functions and tasks of the Ministry of Justice, so we do not need a Ministry of Justice anymore. President Ho Chi Minh had abolished the Ministry of Justice in 1960, and it was not until 1980 that the Ministry of Justice was re-established. Looking at the current functions and tasks of the Ministry of Justice, we see that it is mainly responsible for issuing judicial certificates, such as birth certificates, death certificates, and nationality. These tasks are currently done by the police and administrative committees of the provinces, and there is no need for an intermediate judicial agency.
In the US, Japan, and other countries, they give the Ministry of Justice many powers and tasks of the public security, and police sectors, so the Ministry of Justice is necessary.
But in Vietnam, President Ho Chi Minh established the public security sector with all the tasks and functions of the judiciary sector, so there is no need for a separate judiciary sector anymore, but the public security sector also performs judicial tasks, which is very stable and compact.
In the past, in Vietnam, as well as other countries in the world, there was only one Mandarine of Justice that was enough to perform the tasks of all three sectors: public security-court-procuracy, while still ensuring fairness, uprightness, justice, and strictness.
With the laws of Western countries, it is complicated and cumbersome to create 3 separate branches of police, prosecutors, and courts. It sounds good, but in fact, it only makes the judicial system cumbersome, bloated, and costs a lot of people’s tax money to pay salaries for these 3 branches, and justice is no better than when our ancestors only had 1 Mandarine of Justice.
The Procuracy should also be abolished, it is not necessary, just need the police to do the task of investigation, prosecution, and the court to judge is enough to ensure the fairness and justice of the law.
And now, if Vietnam has abolished the district and county levels, then the commune-ward level government should also be abolished, it is not necessary, just need the 2 levels of central government, and the province and city are enough.
Near residential areas, establish representative offices of the province and city to do administrative procedures for the people, and perform the tasks of security, order, justice, court, and trial is enough.
In densely populated cities, within a radius of about 5km, there is a Representative Office of the Province-City-One-Stop-Door to carry out administrative procedures for the people.
In remote, isolated rural areas, within a radius of about 10km, there is a Representative Office of the Province-City to carry out administrative procedures for the people.
Regarding the police-court to perform judicial duties, maintain security, order, and adjudication, each province-city only needs 4 Representative Offices.
There will no longer be administrative levels with all the departments, offices, and People’s Councils as before, but simply the Representative Offices of the provincial-city level in residential areas will be enough.
With such a compact 2-level administrative apparatus structure, the State apparatus of Vietnam will be reduced to ½, ¼, or more, and there will be conditions to increase salaries for the staff, reduce corruption, and reduce the “Administrative-Mainly harass people” to “Administrative-mainly to serve people” nature of the administrative apparatus.
The salaries of provincial, city, and central leaders must be equal to the salaries of directors of large private companies in Vietnam, as Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew once said.
Mr. Lee Kuan Yew once said that if Singapore were like a large enterprise, then the head of a Singapore enterprise must have a salary equivalent to the salary of the directors of large enterprises in Singapore. At that time, Singapore had about 600 enterprises, so the Prime Minister of Singapore – Director of a Singapore enterprise must have an income equivalent to the income of the directors of the largest companies in Singapore.
Therefore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew decided that the salary of the Prime Minister of Singapore was about 2 million Singapore dollars a year – about 1.7 million USD/year, or about 130,000 USD/month, or about 3 billion VND/month. Now, the salary of Singaporean officials has decreased a bit, the salary of the Prime Minister is about 80,000 USD/month – about 2 billion VND/month, the salary of the Minister is about 60,000 USD/month – about 1.5 billion VND/month.
With the reduction of the Party and State apparatus to 2 levels, Vietnam can completely pay the local and central leaders a decent salary equivalent to Singapore, or even more, to ensure a clean and luxurious Party and State apparatus.
Yes, luxurious, why Vietnam cadres and leaders can not enjoy luxurious life, if they do good jobs to serve people?
No country in the world has a 2-level administrative apparatus, but that’s okay, Vietnam should try to take a shortcut, get ahead, and lead the world in reforming the administrative apparatus, surely the whole world will have to pack their bags to Vietnam to learn.
Harvard University in the US will have to send researchers to Vietnam to study, and include it in the Harvard administrative management curriculum documents.
Like the Hong Duc Code of the Le Dynasty in Vietnam, more than 500 years ago, Harvard University had to translate it into English, making it a teaching and research curriculum for Harvard University on Harvard Law.
Our Party had a very correct policy more than 30 years ago, on “taking shortcuts and anticipating in advance” the most advanced achievements of the world in all fields to develop the country.
But we do not only learn from the world, but our Vietnam, with the wise guidance of General Secretary To Lam, also dares to have our own unique, advanced ways of doing things, making the whole world come to learn from our Vietnam.
President Ho Chi Minh once said:
“- Whatever is beneficial to the people, we must do our best.
– Whatever is harmful to the people, we must avoid at all costs.
– We must love and respect the people, then the people will love and respect us”.
In the world, no State leader from the past to the present, from ancient times to the present, has said a saying that is so popular with the people as President Ho Chi Minh said above.
Those are the things that General Secretary To Lam is leading the Party to do in nowadays in 2025 in accordance with President Ho Chi Minh’s teachings, all for the happiness of the people.
The fact that the Politburo has just issued a Resolution to abolish tuition fees for all public schools, from 5-year-old children going to nursery schools, kindergartens, to grade 12 high schools, from September 2025 onwards, thanks to saving the State budget after streamlining the State apparatus, has shown that General Secretary To Lam has led the country in the right direction in administrative reform and apparatus reform.///