카테고리 없음

‘Reserves for Public Services’ of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in 2010: 62.4 billion won! But for what…?

opengirok 2012. 12. 18. 16:24

Translated by SOORIN KIM(voluntarily activist)



There is a public fund called ‘Reserve for Public Services’. It is a budget allocated by MCST (Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism) for public services. 10% of ‘Sports Toto’ lottery business profit and 2.5% of cycle & motorboat racing business profit are the sources of this fund. The thing is that the budget execution of Reserve for Public Services’ has been known as the typical case of public budget waste.

 

The oversea traveling expenses for the cheering squad of entertainers for Beijing Olympic Game came from the fund. It was very controversial issue several years ago. Not only this, there were many cases in which the reserve was used in inappropriate ways. For example, it was used as a kind of an official expenditure, which MCST gave away to national team athletes or the coaches as incentives. ‘Reserve for Public Service’ is a budget strictly limited to cultures, sports and arts uses for supporting talented people, training experts, educating the disabled, elderly or the low income, and mending and buying facilities for education and training.

 



 

So, CFOI filed FOIA requests for reports on detailed uses of the reserves in 2010. According to the data obtained by the requests, 62.4 billion won of the reserve was funded to 104 projects.




The project that took up most of the budget was ‘the global sports leader promotion project’. 4.7 billion won was given to the project. 2.6 billion won was distributed to 26 Korean consular offices and cultural centers worldwide for ‘global Taekwondo education project’. Yet, the reserves’ subsidy to ‘global Taekwondo project’ is questionable. In 2010, congressman Choi Mun Soon pointed out that 75 million won used for Taekwondo PR by diplomatic offices in the foreign countries was inappropriate expenditures neither for its result nor purposes.

 

The BAI (the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea) have pointed out the lax execution of the reserve. In 2009, it received ‘the worst public budget execution award’ from the CAT (Citizens' Action Network), a renowned NGO. It has been recognized as the notorious waster of public budget by both the government organization and citizen watchdog groups.

 

The more imminent problem is that the size of the reserves is growing rapidly while it is clear that the money is spent so poorly. In 2006, it was 8.1 billion won, but it had been increased to 30.9 billion won within two years, and in 2010, it reached 62.4 billion won. It is enlarging in a surprising speed.

 

That the reserves can be spent simply with the minister of the MCST’s approval, and the money isn’t included in the official budget of the ministry makes it seem like some easy money that can be used as the minister’s pocket money. However, there is no hint of reform to fix this problematic practice so far.

 

When we look into the government budget, it is not hard to find so called ‘easy money’. However, it is not because the money is really ‘easy’. It has become easy money because no matter how many times it is called wasted money or stolen money, the institutions granted with the money never listen to the criticisms.

 

There is no such thing as ‘easy money’ after all. We all expect the MCST to spend the reserves for public services transparently and appropriately.