On the afternoon of March 16, 2023, in Ha Noi, the Office of the President held a press conference to announce the Order No. 02/2023/L-CTN dated March 10, 2023 of the President of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam on the publication of the Ordinance on Handling Administrative Violations in the field of State Audit. The Ordinance was approved by the 15th Standing Committee of the National Assembly, 20th Session on February 28, 2023.
Vice Chairman of the Office of the President Pham Thanh Ha announced the Order of the President
Deputy Chairman of the President's Office Pham Thanh Ha, Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly Office Nguyen Thi Thuy Ngan, and Deputy Auditor General Dang The Vinh attended and co-chaired the press conference. Director General of Legal Department of the State Audit Office of Viet Nam (SAV) Hoang Phu Tho and members of Ordinance drafting team attended the press conference.
Introducing the basic content of the Ordinance on Handling Administrative Violations in the field of state audit (Ordinance) at the press conference, Deputy Auditor General Dang The Vinh said that the Ordinance consists of 5 chapters, 21 articles, including General provision violations, forms, levels of sanction and remedial measures in the field of state audit; Competence to make minutes, competence to sanction and apply remedial measures in the field of state audit; Procedures for sanctioning, enforcement of sanctioning decisions and coercive enforcement of sanctioning decisions; Terms enforcement.
Accordingly, based on the Law on Handling Administrative Violations, the Law on State Audit and relevant legal documents, the Ordinance stipulates that the subjects to administrative penalties are those who commit acts of violating the provisions of regulations on obligations, responsibilities, prohibitions of the Law on State Audit. Subjects liable to penalties for administrative violations in the field of state audit specified in Article 4 encompass Individuals specified at points a and c clause 1 Article 5 of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations who commit acts specified in Chapter II of this Ordinance; organizations specified at points b and c clause 1 Article 5 of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations that commit acts specified in Chapter II of this Ordinance.
In order to ensure consistency with the provisions of clauses 1 and 6, Article 3 of Decree No. 118/2021/ND-CP dated December 23, 2021 of the Government detailing a number of articles and implementation measures the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations, clause 3, Article 4 of the Ordinance also specified: “In the case of cadres, civil servants, public employees, people of the People's Army, People's Public Security and people doing cipher work, they shall do administrative violations in the field of state audit while performing their official duties and tasks, and such violations falling within their official duties or tasks shall not be sanctioned according to the provisions of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations, will be handled in accordance with the law on cadres, civil servants and public employees and other relevant laws.
State agencies that commit violations under the tasks of State management shall not be sanctioned according to the provisions of Law on Handling of Administrative Violations but shall be handled in accordance with relevant laws.”
Deputy Auditor General Dang The Vinh said that administrative violations in the field of state audit are determined based on the provisions of the State Audit Law and legal documents related to state audit activities, including Violating regulations on prohibited acts specified in clauses 2 and 3, Article 8 of the Law on State Audit; violating regulations on obligations and responsibilities of the audited unit specified in Articles 57 and 58 of the Law on State Audit; violate regulations on responsibilities of agencies, organizations and individuals related to state audit activities specified in Article 68 of the Law on State Audit.
Regarding sanctioning forms and remedial measures (Article 6), the Ordinance specified that for each act of administrative violation in the field of state audit, violators must be subject to one of the following administrative sanctions warnings and fines.
Based on the provisions of the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations and in accordance with the specific characteristics of the State Audit activities, the Ordinance also stipulates 02 remedial measures, including forcible correction of information, documents and data with content tolerance, inaccuracy or dishonesty; forced to pay back illegal profits (if any) due to administrative violations in the field of state audit.
According to the Ordinance, the maximum fine for each individual act of administrative violation in the field of state audit is VND 50,000,000. The maximum fine level for each act of administrative violation in the field of state audit of an organization is VND 100,000,000.
Deputy Auditor General Dang The Vinh introduced the basic content of the Ordinance
Pursuant to the Law on Handling of Administrative Violations and the Law on State Audit, the Ordinance specified 07 articles (from Article 8 to Article 14) corresponding to 07 groups of administrative violations (which are common acts occurring frequently in practice) correlating to the form, level of fine and remedial measures.
In specific, Violations against regulations on sending periodic reports (Article 8); Acts of violating regulations on provision of necessary information and documents to perform the audit (Article 9); Acts of violating regulations on answers and explanations related to audit contents (Article 10); Acts of not signing the audit minutes, not complying with the audit decision (Article 11); Acts of bribing or bribing members of the audit Team, obstructing the work of SAV (Article 12); Acts of concealing violations of the law on public finance and public property, illegal interference in audit activities, audit results (Article 13); Acts of violating regulations on implementation of audit conclusions and recommendations of SAV (Article 14).
Regarding the competence to make minutes of administrative violations, the competence to impose penalties and apply remedial measures, the Ordinance specified, the persons competent to make the minutes include: State auditors; Head of the audit Team; Deputy Head of the audit Delegation; Head of audit Delegation; Chief Auditor, while also stipulating the authority of the Head of the audit Delegation and the Chief Auditor in sanctioning and applying remedial measures.
Pursuant to the provisions of the State Audit Law and other relevant laws, the Ordinance also stipulates the complaint and settlement of complaints against decisions on sanctioning administrative violations, the right to initiate lawsuits and to settle lawsuits of individuals, organizations sanctioned in clause 2, Article 17.
The Ordinance takes effect from May 1, 2023. The Auditor General is responsible for organizing the implementation of the Ordinance; review to amend, supplement or promulgate new legal documents according to their competence to ensure that they take effect concurrently with the effective date of this Ordinance.
Giving the closing remarks at the press conference, Deputy Chairman of the Office of the President Pham Thanh Ha suggested that the press agencies promptly release the information and widely publicize the Ordinance so that agencies, organizations and people woule be able understand and implement it./.