Board of Audit and Inspection: "Limitations in Ensuring Reliability of Military Personnel Meal Settlement"

Announcement of Regular Audit Results by Army Headquarters... "Excessive Entry of Meal Claims and Settlement Personnel"

[Asia Economy Reporter Ryu Jeong-min] The Board of Audit and Inspection has released an audit report stating that if the number of soldiers receiving meals on base is entered higher than the actual number, it becomes difficult to secure the reliability of meal settlement, as more food expenses are allocated.

On the 14th, the Board of Audit and Inspection announced the results of the "Regular Audit of the Army Headquarters." According to the Board, the Ministry of National Defense annually establishes meal policies including the basic daily meal cost per soldier and circulates them to each military branch, thereby overseeing the management and operation of meal services.

The Army Headquarters issues meal operation guidelines to each supply battalion (support units related to meals, 13 in total) and supervises the execution and settlement of meal budgets of subordinate units by receiving monthly meal settlement reports.

Meal organizing units must accurately calculate the settlement personnel (the number of soldiers who actually used on-base meals monthly) according to the claimed personnel (the personnel used as the basis for calculating the amount of food ingredients requested by each meal organizing unit). The monthly expenditure compared to the budgeted amount for food expenses (monthly deficit/surplus ratio) must not exceed ±10%.

The Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out, "Supply battalions cannot verify the appropriateness of the claimed and settlement personnel input by the meal organizing units, and they do not have the authority to supervise the appropriateness of the monthly deficit/surplus ratio after the fact, so they are only compiling settlement data by unit."

The Board emphasized, "Meal organizing units cannot know the available monthly food expense budget before requesting food ingredients, and if the settlement personnel are entered in excess of the actual number of diners, they receive a larger allocation of the monthly food expense budget, showing limitations in securing the reliability of meal settlements."

According to the Board's inspection results, in 2019, out of 555 units, 112 units (20.2%) entered the claimed and settlement personnel excessively by an average of 11% (maximum 36.7%, minimum 5.1%), unfairly receiving a larger annual meal budget allocation than other meal organizing units.

The Board pointed out, "Among the 112 units, 61 units spent food expenses exceeding the legitimate annual available amount, yet the Army Headquarters and supply battalions remain unaware of this and have left it as is."

The Board of Audit and Inspection notified the Army Chief of Staff to establish a supervisory system capable of post-inspection and evaluation regarding the appropriateness of meal budget execution by meal organizing units, and to devise measures to improve the accuracy of meal settlements.

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