Ministry of Economy and Finance: "Presidential Office Yongsan Relocation Direct Cost 51.7 Billion Won"... Excluding Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff Relocation Costs

[Asia Economy Sejong=Reporter Son Seon-hee] The financial authorities explained that the direct cost of relocating the presidential office to Yongsan is a total of '51.7 billion KRW'. This combines the previously announced relocation budget of 49.6 billion KRW with 2.1 billion KRW for the presidential residence (the former Ministry of Foreign Affairs minister’s official residence), excluding all budgets related to the relocation of the Ministry of National Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On the afternoon of the 11th, the Ministry of Economy and Finance held a briefing at the Government Sejong Complex regarding issues raised about next year’s budget during the recent National Assembly audit. When asked about the cost of relocating the presidential office to Yongsan, Ahn Sang-yeol, Director of the Administrative and Defense Budget Review Division at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, responded, "The direct costs are 49.6 billion KRW for the office and 2.1 billion KRW for the residence (construction costs, etc.)," adding, "Other ancillary costs are difficult to consider as directly related." The relocation of the presidential office to the Ministry of National Defense building in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, triggered a chain of relocation demands, but those budgets were excluded. Furthermore, this amount shows a significant difference compared to the opposition Democratic Party’s claim that the total cost of the presidential office relocation reaches about 1 trillion KRW.

Director Ahn explained, "The opening of Yongsan Park has been a phased project even before, and the issue of relocating the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been continuously raised due to the unification of wartime and peacetime support systems," adding, "It is difficult to see the Joint Chiefs of Staff relocation as something caused by this (presidential office) Yongsan relocation."

Regarding the controversial budget for constructing a new guesthouse, he added, "Since it has already been withdrawn, it is hard to consider it as a relocation cost." Earlier, it was revealed belatedly that the government had allocated a total of 87.8 billion KRW in next year’s budget for the construction of a new guesthouse, which sparked significant controversy and was canceled following direct withdrawal instructions from President Yoon Seok-yeol.

Meanwhile, during the recent National Assembly audit, the government was also criticized for reducing support for public senior citizen jobs in next year’s budget. The number of public senior citizen jobs next year decreased to 547,000, down by 61,000 from this year’s 608,000.

Regarding this, Hwang Soon-gwan, Director of the Welfare and Safety Budget Review Division, explained, "Although direct fiscal support jobs have decreased, when including senior employment incentive jobs under the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the total reaches 883,000 jobs, which is 29,000 more than this year." He added, "Simple public jobs with low work hours and low wages do not align well with the demand from the baby boomer generation recently entering the senior demographic," and continued, "We have restructured the overall senior job projects by increasing private and social service-type jobs as well."

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