State agencies managing hunger eradication and poverty reduction programs cost Vietnam about VND75.6 trillion ($3.6 billion) per year, or 63% of the money used for such programs annually. Each year, Vietnam spends an estimated VND120 trillion ($5.7 billion) on hunger eradication and poverty reduction, said Pham Thi Hai Chuyen, minister of Labor, Invalid and Social Affairs (MOLISA). “The agencies undertaking such programs are so cumbersome that they gobble up 63% of the allocated fund,” said Dang Huy Dong, deputy minister of Planning and Investment. Vietnam has roughly three millions of poor households and the money if delivered directly to each needy household would be about VND180 million ($8,571) annually. Based on the disbursement of funding for infrastructure construction in poor localities, each household is receiving indirectly only VND15 million ($714). The money for poverty alleviation has gone to feed the administration system instead, an amount equal to the cost of building 77 My Dinh National Stadiums – a facility built in 2003 at $52 million, equivalent to $65 million in 2013. Meanwhile, one in every three poor households has returned to poverty after suffering through natural disasters, the MOLISA said. However, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in his report at the National Assembly’s 6th plenary meeting in November 2013 that the rate of poor households fell from 14.2% in end-2010 to 9.6% in end-2012 and likely to 7.8% at the end of 2013. Still, the exact poverty rate remains a big question for local lawmakers as statistics from the government has often been suspiciously inaccurate. (VietNamNet Feb 20)
