Operational Issues Identified in 'Fruit Tree Production Facility Modernization Support Project'... Strengthening Management and Supervision

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] The government will improve the system to address operational shortcomings revealed during the inspection of the 'Fruit Tree Production Facility Modernization Support Project.'

The Government Joint Anti-Corruption Promotion Team of the Prime Minister's Office, after selecting and inspecting 94 subsidy support projects worth over 50 million KRW each in the past five years in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, announced on the 26th that although no serious violations such as fraudulent receipt or embezzlement were found, procedural deficiencies were identified in various sectors.

Major detected cases include failure to announce project plans, non-compliance with announcement periods, and omission of deliberation by the project selection committee during the project operator selection process.

In project execution, cases such as awarding contracts without open competition, failure to conduct construction supervision, arbitrary changes to project plans, and insufficient subsidy settlement inspections were found. In post-management, non-compliance with shipment agreements, failure to conduct self-inspections and post-evaluations were also confirmed.

Accordingly, the government decided to supplement procedures to ensure that the selection process for subsidy recipients is conducted more fairly and transparently by requiring provincial and city governments to verify the announcement of project plans and the results of the project selection committee deliberations conducted by city and county governments.

To systematically manage internal evaluation data such as whether a business is a priority support management company, duplicate support for the same plot, and other subsidy support details, the government plans to enhance the computerized system.

Additionally, to secure the effectiveness of construction supervision, detailed standards regarding the scope and methods of supervision will be established.

Furthermore, to ensure accountability in post-management of subsidy projects, objective detailed standards for shipment agreements will be prepared, and in cases where shipment agreements are intentionally violated, exclusion from subsidy support will be enforced.

A government official stated, "We will continue to monitor the implementation of system improvements and thoroughly manage and supervise to actively ensure that subsidy projects are operated fairly and effectively."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.