The government has achieved remarkable economic growth but many people in the provinces do not feel the benefit, National Assembly members argued yesterday.
Colonel Thavone Tandavong, an assembly member from Saravan province, said large numbers of people in his constituency had not benefitted from the recent growth.
“We would expect living conditions of civil servants and other people to be better when GDP grows, just like in other countries. I would like the government to consider the issue again, or the people will not believe this GDP growth is real.”
Colonel Thavone joined a number of National Assembly members in commenting on the performance of the government over the past six months at the 9th Ordinary Session of the Sixth Legislature of the Lao National Assembly, which opened in Vientiane on Monday.
He said he had visited Ta-oy and Samuoy districts recently, and discovered that living conditions of people in the two districts had seen only a slight change, despite the government's confirmation that national GDP had grown 7.6 percent in the last fiscal year.
The government has revised the GDP growth forecast from 7.5 to 7.8 percent for this fiscal year and plans to achieve economic growth above 8 percent the year after, Colonel Thavone said.
“The government should look at the issue again; otherwise people will not believe in it. People will believe when they see real proof,” he said.
A number of assembly members yesterday argued that despite achieving major economic growth in recent years, the government was unable to address poverty, which is currently widespread in remote and mountainous parts of the country.
Mr Bountem Xuangsayvong, an assembly member from the 13th constituency, Savannakhet province, said that although the government had invested a large amount of funding into its poverty reduction programme, large numbers of people were still poor.
He said his province was facing a shortage of skilled officials to lead people in food and goods production, so it was difficult for the provincial authorities to free people from poverty.
In one example, he said that people who grow sugarcane for a sugar processing plant in Savannakhet were losing money as they did not know how to grow the crop correctly. He also said incorrect use of pestici des had led to widespread abortion among cows and buffaloes in the area.Mr Saysomone Khommavong, an assembly member from the 6th constituency of Luang Prabang provin ce, said the government should inject funding into infrastructure, to facilitate the production of food and goods, rather than construction and real estate.
He admitted that construction of new public buildings was very important as part of the government's policy to improve its services; however, he said the projects had no economic benefits.
He also said that poor people in Luang Prabang couldn't afford healthcare. He proposed that the sector concerned put a health insurance scheme into practice to make the health service accessible to the underprivileged.
Low quality education, ineffective law enforcement, illegal operation of mining projects and land management were other topics raised by assembly members for discussion, with the aim of helping the government to find solutions.
It is not that easy to feel the benefit, and the term benefit for people is different from person to person. Some people just satisfy with what they have, some just want to get more and more. There is no enough in this world, that's why, we never see our saturated point of benefit.
Yeah ! we still are crawling when going to and from work and tomorrpw well go slower 'cos of traffic jam...hundred of villages use the only one road linking to the city by crossing the Beuong That Luang bridge and from which to the thatluand red light and from there to the thatluang square alway jaming from seven to nine oclock in the morning and from four oclock to seven in the evening . Gov. should take this matter in consideration, we pay tax monthly and we'd like our tax paying to be used efficiently by giving more importance to the infrastructure of the city (more roads) than more public building.
It's nothing new...it's a well known fact ...Haii Yhaii Lonnh Haii Noii Borr Temm, no matter what they are preaching, the majority of lao people will not benefit form the growth for a long long time. Look around you and you see what kind of people are enjoying this benefits. So many thieves in this land of Lane Xang !
if the lao governement continue to see that its own priveleges ( cars , big houses) more important than the good living and the education of the peolpe ( the Infra structure of the country) then, the 15% or 30 % of annually growth will be nothing for the ordinary people like me. because we are not the benificiary of this growth, we still will go to work on dirty road that we constructed ourselve without any assistance from the sector concerned claiming that " we have no budget for these or those area" this last more than 10 years ... I 'm sick of this !
