Foreign consultants need guidelines: experts
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Ineffective co-operation between foreign and domestic consultants often delay the implementation and operation of official development assistance (ODA) funded projects, experts said. Since the country started to receive ODA funded projects some 15 years ago, the presence of foreign consultants working inside the country has grown along with the number of projects that have received funding. Lawyers and consulting practitioners agreed that a solid co-operation mechanism for foreign and domestic consultants would accelerate the operation of ODA’s, but how to establish such a mechanism has proven difficult. The biggest hurdle facing foreign consultants working in Vietnam lay within issues of the legal framework for ODA projects. Legal basis The country has promulgated-some legal basis for the enforcement and operation of the projects with roles, responsibilities and rights of the related parties defined by laws and decrees. Infrastructure development is an important sector that has received a large amount of ODA funding over the past 15 years. The Viet Nam National Assembly has passed the Construction Law, that came into effect on July 1, 2004, defining an equal role of foreign and local consultants. According to lawyer Truong Thi Hoa, the construction law and its enforcement decrees are a solid legal basis for foreign consultants to practise in construction activities in Vietnam. However, Hoa said the roles of the foreign consultants are not included in the regulations on urban planning that was promulgated according to the Decree 91/CP, issued on August 17, 1994, which is the most important legal document pertaining to the sector. Hoa said in order to maximise the results of foreign consultants, their roles, responsibilities and rights need to be spelt out clearly. On the Vietnamese side, Hoa said, project management units have to have the ability to hold recruitment tests to recruit foreign consultants. The PMUs need to be qualified enough to hold the foreign consultants to practice their profession in accordance with the Vietnamese legal frameworks. The infrastructure development projects are categorised into three models: foreign consultants take major responsibilities of the projects’ outcomes; foreign and domestic consultants share responsibilities the projects’ outcomes; and foreign consultants take the consulting task while the local consultants are in charged of the outcomes. More : english.vietnamnet.vn |