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PAPI and PCI: Some questions should be answered

April 12, 2014/h3>

Following the Provincial Competitiveness Index 2013 promulgated on March 20 by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and USAID, the Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) 2013 was made public on April 2 by the United Nations Development Program in collaboration with CECODES and VFF-CRT. Both the indices measure administration and governance quality of the same institution which is the provincial government in the eyes of citizens on the one hand and of enterprises on the other. While PAPI conducted interviews with 13,982 citizens, CPI polled 8,903 businesses. Both were carried out in all 63 provinces and cities nationwide at the same time during the year.

The following are the indices used by PAPI and PCI:

PAPI PCI
Participation at local level Entry cost
Transparency Land access
Vertical accountability Transparency
Control of corruption Informal charges
Public administrative procedures Time cost
Public service delivery Policy bias
Proactivity
Business support services
Labor training
Legal institution

The two groups of indices relate to the same content such as bias, corruption, informal charges, administrative procedures and time cost. The sub-indices are also similar such as land planning or transparency in land use. In short, the two groups of indices are either the same or supplement with each other in a number of aspects.

Both the pollsters said they have used interviewing methods of random sampling without any interference whatsoever to ensure objectivity.

However, the results of the two polls are in some cases astonishingly different.

First, PAPI 2013 (without a weight) and PCI (with a weight) do not match well. In other words, there are glaring discrepancies between how citizens and corporate leaders rated the efficiency of governance of the same provincial government!

It is hoped that the two pollsters would sit together to work on the discrepancies so that their respective approach could be made clearer to the public. Such a practice will consider ably help readers understand the similarities and differences of the two respective indices.

(By Le Dang Doanh)