Minister Mai Tien Dung acknowledging strong reforms implemented by EVN in recent times
In his speech at the meeting, Minister Mai Tien Dung acknowledged that in recent times, Vietnam Electricity has made significant efforts in implementing reforms, improved quality of electricity services and achieved impressive enhancement of the access-to-electricity index.
According to the assessment of WB, the access-to-electricity index of Vietnam has advanced from the 156th position to the 27th out of 190 nations and economies.
To promote the success of reforms, in 2019, when launching the National Public Services Portal (NPSP), EVN has integrated, connected and performed three services on NPSP including new power supply from low voltage power grid, new power supply from medium voltage power grid and electricity bill payment. On 24 December 2019, all of the twelve level-4 electricity services of EVN have been connected with NPSP.
Evolution of access-to-electricity index in Vietnam as assessed by WB
Emphasizing the importance of access-to-electricity factor to the people and enterprises, the Minister, Chairman of the Government Office, requested related ministries, departments and units to cooperate with EVN in implementing changes really advantageous to the people and enterprises.
At the meeting, Mr. Ngo Hai Phan, Director of Administrative Procedures Control Department of the Government Office, presented some recommendations to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Transport to improve the access-to-electricity index, focusing on reduction of administrative procedures and documents and minimizing the time of handling access-to-electricity requests from customers.
Specifically, Decree No. 39/2015/TT-BCT dated 18 November 2015 and Decree No. 24/2016/TT-BCT dated 30 November 2016 by Ministry of Industry and Trade need to be reviewed; Decree No. 35/2017/TT-BGTVT needs to be reconsidered for review.
EVN needs to chair and cooperate with VNPT, the Government Office, Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), Ministry of Transport (MOT) and People’s Committees of provinces and cities to develop and implement soon applications which connect one-stop through NPSP for power supply procedures from medium voltage power grid.
EVN Vice General Director Vo Quang Lam said that EVN wish to receive help and support from the Government, ministries, departments, units and local authorities on improving the access-to-electricity index
EVN Vice General Director Vo Quang Lam said that if the solutions presented by the Department of Administrative Procedures Control of the Government Office are implemented and acknowledged, they will contribute to reducing one access-to-electricity procedure (currently there are four procedures); and lowering the implementation time of medium voltage power supply.
For its part, in the near future, in order to improve the access-to-electricity index, EVN will complete its medium and low voltage power grid database, apply GISs and implement IT applications towards promoting administrative reforms and reducing administrative procedures.
At the meeting, representatives of MOIT, MOT and CIEM also expressed their support to the reform implementation, thereby, contributing to improving the access-to-electricity index and enhancing the national competitiveness.
Concluding at the meeting, Minister Mai Tien Dung requested MOIT and MOT to reconsider and review their related circulars based on the propositions of the Administrative Procedures Control Department of the Government Office, towards to the goals of integrating/reducing the number of administrative procedures and the number of documents at each procedure, at the same time set out targets of reducing the access-to-electricity time.
The Minister requested WB Doing Business to conduct survey and continue acknowledging the efforts in reform made by the Vietnamese government, ministries, departments, branches, and enterprises on improving the business environment indexes.
Appreciating EVN in properly implementing reforms in recent years, the Minister, Chairman of the Government Office also requested EVN to continue taking the core role in reforming and improving the access-to-electricity index. At the same time, the Minister requested Ho Chi Minh City Power Corporation to play the role of “a driving force” of reform in the power sector.