Ministry of Culture to Revise Private Subsidy Projects... Announces Internal Audit

Projects with Identified Issues Will Face Support Suspension or Reduction
Necessity Review to Be Reflected in Next Year's Budget Plan

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is further strengthening the management system for subsidy projects of non-profit private organizations. It will monitor whether transparent execution is carried out through internal audits and minimize wasteful expenditures.

Park Bo-gyun, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, stated on the 11th, "We will promote innovation in the financial structure of the cultural sector along with re-examining existing subsidy projects to ensure that the budget is used effectively and appropriately." More than 60% of the Ministry's total budget is allocated to subsidy projects. From 2019 to last year, it increased by an average of 6.5% annually. This year, it decreased due to the transfer of the National Balanced Development Special Account to local governments and the normalization of temporary COVID-19 expenditures. However, it still accounts for 64% of the total budget, with 47.1% of that invested in private subsidy projects.

The Ministry will conduct internal audits by April to closely examine the legality of the selection process for supported organizations, transparency in accounting, and whether funds were used for purposes other than intended. The target is subsidy projects for non-profit private organizations supported over the past three years. A Ministry official said, "All relevant departments including project departments, finance departments, audit departments, and affiliated public institutions will participate in the audit," adding, "We plan to finalize the audit target projects and key inspection items early this month." Support for projects found to have issues will be discontinued if they have been continued out of habit. Additionally, the necessity and effectiveness of each subsidy project will be comprehensively reviewed and reflected in next year’s budget formulation.

The Ministry has previously managed cases of fraudulent receipt based on internal audits and various reports. From 2016 to last year, 48 cases were detected and 2.996 billion won was recovered. While preparing this year’s budget, the scale of support for subsidy projects with poor performance or requiring efficiency improvements was also significantly reduced. The Korea Cultural Festival and the Seoul Olympic Legacy Forum are representative examples. The former switched to an in-person event last year with about 9 billion won invested but was evaluated as having a low effect on attracting foreign tourists. The latter, being a one-time event, saw its budget reduced from 600 million won to 300 million won.

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