"Was Last Year's Budget Used Appropriately?"... National Assembly Begins Two-Week 'Settlement Review' Starting Today

Comprehensive Policy Inquiry of Economic Ministries Begins on 24th... Detailed Review at Subcommittee on 1st Next Month

On the 24th, the full meeting of the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts is being held at the National Assembly. Photo by Yoon Dong-ju doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyemin] The National Assembly will examine the appropriateness of last year's budget execution over a two-week period starting from the 24th. The Special Committee on Budget and Accounts began the audit of the '2019 Fiscal Year' settlement with a comprehensive policy inquiry into economic ministries on the same day.

According to the settlement report submitted by the government to the National Assembly, total revenue last year was 471.1 trillion KRW, and total expenditure was 485.1 trillion KRW. Compared to the supplementary budget (original budget + supplementary budget), total revenue decreased by 3.3 trillion KRW, while total expenditure increased by 9.7 trillion KRW. Compared to 2018, total revenue increased by 7.8 trillion KRW and total expenditure increased by 51 trillion KRW. Accordingly, the management fiscal balance (the integrated fiscal balance minus the social security fund balance), which indicates fiscal soundness, recorded a deficit of 54.4 trillion KRW.

Opposition parties such as the United Future Party plan to point out that despite a significant increase in expenditure compared to the previous year, the performance fell short of targets, and that execution was sluggish due to insufficient prior planning.

In fact, according to the review report prepared by the Budget and Accounts Committee, only about 70% of all projects achieved their initial goals. The Ministry of Environment's project to reduce emissions from operating vehicles is a representative example. Among this project, the installation of emission reduction devices on construction machinery supported only 616 units (12%) out of the planned 5,000 units last year. This was because 18% of the previously installed devices malfunctioned, reducing demand. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety's wind and flood insurance project and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family's Saeil Center designation and operation projects either failed to meet core project goals or showed consistently poor performance annually.

Newly established projects experiencing delays due to insufficient planning were also identified. These include the Ministry of Science and ICT's quantum computing technology development and the Korea Forest Service's next-generation medium-sized satellite development project. The Ministry of Education's improvement of working conditions for part-time lecturers at private universities and the Financial Services Commission's fintech support were criticized for overestimating project demand or having inadequate plans, resulting in poor execution.

Cases of budget misestimation leading to excessive or insufficient budget allocation and excessive unused funds were also pointed out. The Budget and Accounts Committee judged that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's housing benefit support project had an excessively allocated budget due to a misestimation of the effect of abolishing the support obligation criteria in October 2018.

The Budget and Accounts Committee will continue with comprehensive policy inquiries into non-economic ministries on the 25th, individual reviews of economic ministries on the 28th, and individual reviews of non-economic ministries on the 31st. Starting September 1, subcommittees will be activated for detailed inspections, followed by the resolution of the settlement bill on September 7.

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