[Editorial] Public Questioning Saves Prevents Budget Waste

Wasteful factors always find their way into government spending. There is the widespread thinking that you should get your agency the project it wants even if that entails exaggerating its legitimacy, and there are numerous instances when more than a few government agencies pursue overlapping projects. Just look at road construction. The need for expressways (gosok doro) and national highways (gukdo) get reviewed separately at the national government level and regional highways are the jurisdiction of regional governments, so the demand for means of transportation gets calculated incorrectly. Quite often you see nice new roadways with no cars on them. A considerable number of the expressways built with private money, like the one connecting Cheonan and Nonsan, are collecting less in toll fees so have ended up hundreds of billions in government support each year.

It is important that budget officials try to reduce waste and that the people have a sense of ownership over what their taxes go for, and that is what makes the Ministry of Budget and Planning's decision to take a second look at the road expansion project for highway connecting Yeoju and Yangpyeong. Approved as part of the first five-year national highway plan, which began in 1999, it was set to cost W1,771 billion. Now it becomes the first once finalized budget expenditure to be given this kind of review. It is obvious that once the Yeoju-Yangpyeong inland expressway is complete there will be less traffic. In the old days the additional project would have just kept on going. Of particular note is the fact that it was civic groups and the local community that were the first to take issue with the highway, saying it would just waste funds. Their actions serve as an example to others.

There is already more than W200 trillion in government debt, and the situation is such that there will only be more need for budget funding for things like welfare and to deal with Korea's ageing society. Expenditures need to be better managed, but of course would be impossible for budget officials to review the government's many projects and weed out the ones that are unnecessary. What is needed is the participation of the public, which needs to think of itself as the national budget's "gatekeeper." Interestingly enough, the budget ministry just opened its "Budget Waste Report Center" earlier this week and says it will actively change programs when cases of waste are discovered. There are going to be cash rewards, so everyone wins.

The Hankyoreh, 13 January 2006.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]