Many ministries in Vietnam employ more deputy ministers than the law allows, local news website Vietnamnet quoted the report of the Ministry of Home Affairs as saying.

 

All of the ministries employ between five and ten deputy ministers. Under regulations, they’re each supposed to have a maximum of four.

 

The Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development top the list of over-staffed bodies.  

 

The ministries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Natural Resources-Environment employ seven deputy ministers each.

 

The recent report also noted that many ministries have assigned more than three deputy chiefs per department and agency - which, again, exceeds the regulated allowance.

 

Ministries have failed to comply with government regulations on administrative organization, the ministry concluded.

 

At last month’s National Assembly meeting Tuan attributed the excessive number of deputy ministers to the fact that many ministries have been consolidated.

 

Another reason, according to Tuan, is that some ministries want to guarantee that they can rotate officials as ordered by the government.

 

Others added an official to meet the requirement that requires each ministry has to have at least one female deputy minister, Tuan said.

 

The ministry’s report also showed that the number of departments and general departments under the ministries are increasing as well, which is partly due to the increasing demand for managing multi-industries, Vietnamnet reported.