The funds had been made available but their disbursement by local authorities had been slowed down due to procedural issues, according to the Viet Nam Net news website, which quoted Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai’s report to the National Assembly’s (NA) Standing Committee.

“The provincial authorities should examine this issue and ensure there wouldn’t be any cases in which residents must wait years before they are compensated,” he said.

The deputy prime minister addressed the 19th session of the NA’s Standing Committee that opened in Hanoi Tuesday, discussing the results of an investigation by a supervisory team into the site clearance and the resettlement of displaced residents in connection with the Son La Hydroelectric Plant project.

In February, the supervisory team found only 62% of 20,000 residents displaced by the project had been resettled. Resettlement of all residents is scheduled for completion in July of next year.

Tran The Vuong of the Standing Committee said the team should have identified responsible individuals in its report on the lax financial management of the project.

The supervisory team told the session that nearly 40 percent of resettled households have received farmland. Meanwhile, residents’ greatest worry was that there was no more arable land to distribute, or that they would receive land with poor soil.

“Most of the (resettled) residents were worried as they were unaware of the cultivation guidelines for the next few years,” said Ksor Phuoc, chairman of the assembly’s Ethnic Council and head of the supervisory team.

He also expressed concern regarding residents who were staying in temporary resettlement areas in Dien Bien Province’s Muong Lay Town, as they would soon face the flood season and they had not yet been transferred to their permanent resettlement areas.

The US$2.6 billion Son La Hydroelectric Plant began construction in 2005, and will create the largest reservoir in the country, which will cover parts of Son La, Lai Chau and Dien Bien provinces.