Vietnam needs $34b to keep traffic flowing

Viet Nam would need up to VND713 trillion (US$34.6 billion) to restore and develop road safety corridors from 2011-20, according to estimates from the Directorate for Roads.

At a meeting last week in Ha Noi, the directorate revealed that the money would be used to compensate residents whose land was seized and to remove construction works that have caused traffic problems on the corridors.

The estimates indicate that VND70 trillion ($3.4 billion) should be spent every year on roads, but participants at the meeting had doubts about the feasibility of this figure, considering the current state of the national budget.

The meeting aimed to review the second phase [from the third quarter of 2008 to 2010] of the Prime Minister’s 2007 decision on road safety corridors, and also to plan for the third phase [from 2010-20].

Four years after the decision, violations are still being reported along many road corridors, according to the directorate’s report.

Deputy head of the directorate’s Science and Technology and Traffic Safety Department Pham Minh Tam said common violations were encroaching properties, illegal constructions and cross-roads, causing traffic jams and accidents.

He also cited the report statistics, which showed that more than 11,500 illegal cross-roads and 1,090 gas stations existed along the national highways.

He said the Transport Ministry had allowed some localities to build bypass roads in urban areas, but local officials had still provided lands along the highways to build urban roads. “Land management and usage in localities have not been strict enough,” he said.

Deputy general director of the second road management area Nguyen Ngoc Son agreed and said violations of safety corridors have been reported along all national highways to varying extents, while many provinces had not strictly implemented the Prime Minister’s decision to begin with.

“Some provinces granted household registration to their residents in the corridors, and several investors were not compensated for land clearance,” Son added.

He said the management board for National Highway 4 had reviewed more than 4,300 violations and asked localities to resolve them satisfactorily, but not a single locality did so.

Only 29 out of 353 violations of road safety corridors on National Highways 6 and 43 through northern Son La Province were dealt with in 2009, and only 14 out of 280 were resolved last year.

“The violations have kept occurring even though threats were made to punish the chairmen of districts and communes who let the encroachment happen,” he said.

Deputy head of the ministry’s Transport Infrastructure Department Mai Van Hong said the Land Law had not stipulated fees for compensation, which could also cause difficulties when localities try to implement the plan.

Deputy transport minister Nguyen Ngoc Dong said this was a complicated issue that required the co-operation of all levels of government, especially the localities close to the corridors.

Several road management boards have asked the ministry to report to the Prime Minister about the situation in order to make sure the third phase can be implemented in a timely fashion.

In addition, they are advocating punishment for relevant authorities who do not comply.

Money problems

According to the decision’s regulations, the provincial People’s Committee has to pay for the third phase of the plan.

However, vice chairman of Nghe An Province’s People’s Committee Huynh Thanh Dien said there was simply not enough money to move forward.

Dien asked the transport sector to adjust its plans and bring them in line with the Government’s capital resources, in order to ensure the feasibility of the plan.

“In the next 10 years, the province would need VND7.13 trillion ($346 million) for land clearance. The costs would be higher due to inflation,” Dien said.

Representatives from the transport departments of other cities and provinces including Da Nang, Hoa Binh, Nghe An and the Central Highlands also said that localities could not afford to spend money for the road safety corridors, as they were first and foremost concerned with improving the lives of their neediest citizens. — VNS