Decision No. 198/2007/QĐ-TTg Amending and Supplementing Certain Provisions of Decision No. 134/2004/QĐ-TTg dated July 20, 2004 of the Government on Certain Support Policies for Production Land, Residential Land, Housing, and Drinking Water for Poor Households of Ethnic Minorities with Difficult Livelihoods.

Pursuant to …;

REGARDING AMENDMENTS AND SUPPLEMENTS TO CERTAIN ARTICLES OF DECREE NO. 134/2004/QĐ-TTg OF JULY 20, 2004, ISSUED BY THE PRIME MINISTER ON CERTAIN SUPPORT POLICIES FOR LAND FOR PRODUCTION, RESIDENTIAL LAND, HOUSING, AND LIVING WATER FOR POOR HOUSEHOLDS OF ETHNIC MINORITY GROUPS WITH DIFFICULT LIVES

PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the Law on Organization of the Government dated December 25, 2001;
Considering the proposal of the Minister, Chairman of the National Ethnic Minorities Committee,

DECISION:

Article 1. Amend and supplement certain articles of Decree No. 134/2004/QĐ-TTg dated July 20, 2004, issued by the Prime Minister on certain support policies for land for production, residential land, housing, and living water for poor households of ethnic minority groups with difficult lives as follows:

1. Article 1

Amend Clause 1 as follows: households of ethnic minorities residing in localities, included in the list of poor households managed by the People's Committee of the commune at the time of December 31, 2006; living by agriculture and forestry; not having residential land or production land or lacking production land and facing difficulties with housing and living water.

2. Article 2

a) Amend Clause 2 as follows: for residential land; based on the land fund, residential land quota, and financial capacity of the locality, the Provincial People's Committee may consider and decide to allocate residential land to poor households of ethnic minorities at a level suitable to the conditions and customs of the locality.

b) Amend Point a, Clause 3 as follows: the central budget will provide a subsidy of 6 million VND per household for building houses. Localities have the responsibility to provide additional support beyond the central budget subsidy and mobilize community assistance for households to build houses.

c) Amend Point a, Clause 4 as follows: for poor households of ethnic minorities living scattered in highland areas, rocky regions, and areas with difficulties in accessing living water, the central budget will provide an average subsidy of 0.5 tons of cement per household or a subsidy of 400,000 VND per household to construct rainwater storage tanks, dig wells... to solve the problem of living water.

The above subsidies only apply to beneficiaries starting from 2007.

3. Article 3

a) Add to the content of Clause 5: land currently being lived on and used stably by households of ethnic minorities in place, which is under the management of agricultural farms and forest farms, shall be transferred by these farms to the local authorities to process the issuance of land use rights certificates for the households according to regulations.

b) Amend Clause 7: if there is no agricultural production land, then allocate forestry production land, the allocation limit implemented according to the Land Law 2003 and Decree No. 181/2004/NĐ-CP of October 29, 2004, of the Government on the implementation of the Land Law; entitled to benefits according to Decision No. 304/2005/QĐ-TTg of November 23, 2005, of the Prime Minister when participating in protecting and developing forests on allocated land as stipulated in Point 1, Section III of Decision No. 100/2007/QĐ-TTg of July 6, 2007, amending and supplementing certain articles of Decision No. 661/QĐ-TTg of July 29, 1998, on the objectives, tasks, policies, and implementation organization of the project to plant five million hectares of new forests.

c) Add Clause 8: the recovery of land from agricultural and forest farms shall be carried out according to Decision No. 146/2005/QĐ-TTg of June 15, 2005, of the Prime Minister on the policy of recovering production land from agricultural and forest farms to allocate to poor households of ethnic minorities and Decision No. 57/2007/QĐ-TTg of May 4, 2007, of the Prime Minister amending and supplementing certain articles of Decision No. 146/2005/QĐ-TTg.

d) Add Clause 9: in cases where localities are short of land funds and unable to resolve the issue of allocating production land to poor households of ethnic minorities according to Decision No. 134/2004/QĐ-TTg, localities shall proactively address this by providing support for production conversion, vocational training, and job placement.

4. Article 5

a) Amend Clause 1 as follows: the central budget will ensure funding according to the subsidy standards specified in this Decision and provide partial funding for management costs for localities with financial difficulties.

b) Amend Clause 2 as follows: local budgets must allocate at least 20% of the amount guaranteed by the central budget, while also mobilizing other legitimate sources of capital to implement the goals and policies. For localities with financial difficulties (receiving supplementary balance transfers from the central budget), the supplementary matching funds (20%) will be determined based on the remaining volume for the years 2007 and 2008, specifically as follows: 20% for localities receiving supplementary balance transfers from the central budget exceeding 70% of the local budget balance forecast for 2007; 15% for localities receiving between 50% and 70%; 10% for localities receiving less than 50%.

c) Amend Clause 3 as follows: localities shall proactively allocate management funds equal to 0.5% of the total investment amount and budget for evaluation and acceptance of project implementation results to carry out land surveying and issuing land use right certificates for poor households of ethnic minorities (for localities with financial difficulties, part of the management funds will be subsidized by the central budget; for self-balancing localities, localities must ensure management funds from their own budgets).

5. Article 6

a) Amend Point d, Clause 1 as follows: the implementation period of this Decision ends on December 31, 2008.

b) Amend Clause 4 as follows: based on the plan to resolve production land, residential land, housing, and living water that has been approved by the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, the Ethnic Minority Commission will take the lead in compiling the plan; the Ministry of Planning and Investment will coordinate with the Ministry of Finance and the Ethnic Minority Commission to allocate additional targeted funds for localities in the annual state budget plan and budget estimate to be submitted to the Prime Minister.

Article 2. This Decision takes effect 15 days after its publication in the Official Gazette.

Article 3. Various The Minister, Heads of Ministries equivalent to Ministries, Heads of Government Agencies, and Chairmen of People's Committees of provinces and centrally-administered cities are responsible for implementing this Decision./.