Nowon-gu Strengthens Local Subsidy Management... Ensuring Transparency

Starting from support for all projects, re-examining from the beginning, securing transparency and effectiveness through stringent project evaluation
Distributing detailed guidelines for local subsidies execution and strengthening management supervision capabilities through real-time consultation

Nowon-gu, Seoul (Mayor Oh Seung-rok) announced that it has established a local subsidy management plan and distributed detailed execution guidelines to strengthen the responsibility and transparency of financial management.

Local subsidies are financial supports provided by local governments to organizations or individuals carrying out projects. They have the advantage of enhancing efficiency and democracy by allowing the private sector to perform projects that need to be encouraged under laws and ordinances. However, cases of misuse or fraudulent receipt have been occurring repeatedly.

Since subsidies purely funded by the district are expected to reach 10.5 billion KRW in 2024, the district has established a separate management plan for transparent management of local subsidy projects. The plan aims to set unified execution standards for various subsidy projects to prevent confusion among subsidy recipients and resolve ambiguities in supervision.

The main contents include ▲establishing standards from subsidy project budgeting to execution ▲securing the capacity and responsibility of public officials as subsidy project managers ▲establishing a response system upon detection of signs of fraudulent receipt.

The district first set standards from budgeting to execution stages to prevent various subsidy projects from becoming habitual through annual or repetitive processes. The necessity and appropriateness of projects are reviewed from the ground up, with underperforming projects being abolished and similar or overlapping projects integrated. Project participants must familiarize themselves with detailed guidelines including performance evaluation and operate projects according to execution standards.

Projects with poor execution after receiving subsidies will face budget cuts, and project performance evaluations, which were previously conducted leniently, will now be conducted through relative evaluation with assigned ratios by grade. Projects with very poor performance will be thoroughly verified, leading to budget cuts and suspension of support.

Support is also provided for trial and error due to inexperienced execution by organizations newly selected as subsidy recipients, and efforts have been made to strengthen the capacity of public officials responsible for managing organizations attempting to exploit loopholes in subsidy projects.

A district official noted that recent evaluations of local subsidy projects highlighted many cases caused by public officials’ lack of understanding and neglect of complex procedures and regulations, and thus a 220-page manual was produced and distributed.

The manual contains explanations of laws and regulations related to local subsidy projects, the overall flow and unified forms of project execution procedures, key principles of project operation and detailed accounting standards, budgeting and execution standards, and major Q&A cases.

Based on the manual, the Planning and Budget Office conducts job training for all staff and provides education on the Local Subsidy Integrated Management System for project managers, while operating a consultation window where assistance can be received at any time during subsidy project execution.

In addition, a collaborative system has been established to immediately correct any detected fraudulent receipt or guideline violations. Before improper project execution becomes chronic or large-scale, supplementary investigations on the entire project will be initiated in cooperation with the Planning and Budget Office and the Audit Officer.

Oh Seung-rok, Mayor of Nowon-gu, said, “I felt regret over cases that could have been operated according to their original purpose if a little more attention and understanding had been given, which made me realize the need for a comprehensive plan. Since local subsidies are also operated with residents’ taxes, we will manage them strictly to properly return the value of taxes to the residents.”

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