The year 2023 has recorded many highlights in application of information technology (IT) at the State Treasury by high IT disbursement rate, strong promotion of IT projects implementation to modernize professional activities under the State Treasury development strategy until 2030 and IT application plan in 2021-2025 period, reinforcement of IT applications to improve operational efficiency and quality for budget-using units...

Photo: Quang Minh.
According to the State Treasury, in 2023, the sector has deployed 31 IT application bidding packages with IT disbursement expecting to reach a high rate of 98.22%.
In 2023, the State Treasury had conducted inspection at 7 provincial-level State Treasury units and 07 district-level State Treasury units. Inspection contents included: Management, operation, utilization of technical equipments, network infrastructure, transmission lines, server rooms and centralized power systems; Exploitation and utilization of application software, databases and related contents. The State Treasury had recognized good points, shortcomings and problems of local treasury units in IT system management and operation, as well as acknowledging recommendations and then providing guidance to local treasury units for implementation. After inspection, the State Treasury on December 6, 2023 issued the Official Dispatch No. 7006/KBNN-CNTT to regulate IT application activities at the State Treasury of provinces and cities.
In 2023, the State Treasury has completed upgrading online public service system, adding a data exchange portal via internet with electricity, water and telecommunications service providers for nationwide deployment.
For telecommunications services, the State Treasury has connected and paid directly with the largest service providers in Vietnam including VNPT and Vinaphone. For electricity and water services, the State Treasury makes payments through intermediaries being commercial banks (commercial banks having system connection contracts, agreements with most of electricity and water providers nationwide). Automation process has helped budget-using units to reduce time and costs as they do not have to prepare and control records manually; Besides, pressure of receiving and processing documents on online public service system has been reduced as part of transaction records have been processed automatically, State Treasury officers could have more time to control complex payment records.
In addition, service invoices of all budget-using units could be settled simultaneously through State Treasury system, helping the economy's money to flow quickly and smoothly; Transaction time is shortened from 1 day (with control by lots of people) to about 30-60 minutes (without human intervention). Human resources have shifted from execution to supervision, inspection and control, creating premise to shift from pre-inspection to post-inspection.
The State Treasury has completed expanding the state general account system functions and deployed thereof on a large scale, perfecting the preparation of state financial reports of the State Treasury. The State Treasury has also completed expanding the treasury management system functions, adding foreign currency buying and government bonds term repurchasing functions for commercial banks to meet requirements on treasury management and capital mobilization for development investment.
The State Treasury has completed construction and pilot implementation of a centralized document management and administration system for units in the sector, readily for official deployment in the first 6 months of 2024 with connection to the national document axis.
The State Treasury has completed development and been ready for pilot deployment of electronic salary payment software under regulations of Circular No. 136/2018/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance, contributing to improving the operational efficiency of the State Treasury.
In 2023, the State Treasury maintains the provision of 100% of administrative procedures to be carried out as full online public services and integrated to the National Public Service Portal; 100% of budget-using units participate in online public services, with 99% state budget expenditure transactions done through online public service system (excluding national security and defense sector).
The State Treasury continues to connect online public service system with accounting software of budget-using units, thereby helping to improve quality of service provision to budget-using units. By the end of 2023, more than 35,000/98,000 budget-using units have connected their accounting software to the State Treasury's online public service system.
In 2023, the State Treasury received and resolved 100% of supporting requests for budget-using units, promptly removing difficulties and obstacles, facilitate units to operate quickly on IT application systems. The State Treasury keeps maintaining the online public service system to operate stably and smoothly, serving 100% of budget-using units (98,000 units).
In 2023, the State Treasury has conducted 02 surveys on the State Treasury's Online Public Services page, with time frames from March 15, 2023 to May 15, 2023 and from September 15, 2023 to November 15 /2023, achieving rate of satisfaction at 95% and 95.85% respectively.
The State Treasury has also in 2023 focused on training to ensure information safety and security for IT systems. On December 18, 2023, the State Treasury issued an Official Dispatch aiming at ensuring the IT system to operate stably, smoothly and safely for account book closing, settlement at the 2023 year end.
According to the State Treasury, in addition to advantages in IT application, however, the State Treasury has also faced many difficulties in implementation of IT projects. As under the Public Investment Law, the project implementation process shall include various steps from registration of medium-term capital plan to 5-year plan, investment policy approval, project approval, annual capital plan approval... However, it lacks specific and detailed instructions in basic construction field from the upper management units, leading to a lot of confusion in implementation process. The project appraisal and approval must go through many relevant contacts of the Ministry, prolonging approval time.
The construction of internal software complies with guidance in the Official Dispatch No. 2589/BTTTT-UDCNTT dated August 24, 2011 of the Ministry of Information and Communications. However, the guiding dispatch is not of high level of legality, many contents of the guiding dispatch are not specific, not practical. From years of 2020 and 2021, the Ministry of Information and Communications has drafted a replacement document with a higher level of legality, but it has not been issued so far, causing difficulties in software construction and development, the most central area in digital transformation.
(Thu Hằng)