Daegu City Releases Emergency Living Funds to All Citizens … Kwon Young-jin Says "Even If We Have to Squeeze a Dry Towel"

First Mention at the Citizens' Committee Video Meeting on the 9th
"Even if Less Than the First Round, the Second Round Will Include All Citizens"

Mayor Kwon Young-jin delivering a greeting at the 'COVID-19' Emergency Economic Measures Meeting.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Dong-wook] Daegu City, which distributed 270 billion won in emergency livelihood funds last April, has decided to provide a second round of emergency livelihood funds to all citizens in the second half of the year.

This policy was confirmed after it was revealed belatedly on the 10th that Mayor Kwon Young-jin made the statement during a video meeting of the COVID-19 Overcoming Pan-Citizen Countermeasure Committee held on the 9th.

During the video conference, Mayor Kwon said, "The usage period for the national emergency disaster relief fund and Daegu City's emergency livelihood funds is until August 31," adding, "I wonder if there will be people truly in need of livelihood funds in September, October, and November. Considering this, we should also prepare measures for that time," thus bringing up plans for additional livelihood funds.

He continued, "Even if we have to squeeze the city budget like wringing a dry towel, next time we will prepare to distribute the funds evenly to all citizens, so that every citizen feels supported," and stated, "Although the amount may be smaller than the first round, the second support will be prepared so that all citizens can receive it."

The first round of livelihood funds was distributed from April 10, totaling about 270 billion won, to approximately 459,000 households out of 586,000 households with median income below 100%, excluding about 127,000 households that had already received welfare benefits or special COVID-19 support. (During this process, public officials, private school teachers, and public enterprise employees were also excluded from the eligibility, but recently controversy arose as some among them received the funds fraudulently.)

Mayor Kwon requested the city council's cooperation for the budget approval for the second emergency livelihood fund support, saying, "I ask for the cooperation of Chairperson Bae Ji-sook of the City Council." In response, Chairperson Bae replied, "Since there are likely to be various opinions within the council, we will try to gather positive consensus."

Earlier, regarding the recent issue of improper receipt of emergency livelihood funds by public officials and others, Mayor Kwon apologized, saying, "It would have been better if public officials or those in public enterprises had not applied, but since the system allows any household member to apply, there were cases where family members applied. I am sorry that such incidents occurred."

Meanwhile, Daegu City has begun the recovery process for COVID-19 emergency livelihood funds fraudulently received by 3,928 people (amounting to 2.5 billion won), including public officials. The recovery targets include 1,810 public officials, 1,577 private school teachers, 297 military personnel, and 244 public institution employees, totaling 3,928 people. It is known that Daegu City is considering disciplinary action against 74 affiliated public officials who received emergency livelihood funds despite being ineligible.

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