Unnecessary Street Construction Found

34 year-old Lee, who lives in Seocho-gu, had a disturbing experience recently. He was allocated a parking space, which was very difficult, and paid for three months in advance. However, he could not use the parking space he got with such difficulty.

He had no choice but to park illegally because of sidewalk construction. One local government embarked upon a water pipe replacement construction at the entrance of an apartment in September. In less than three months, it started construction at the same place, saying it had to lay gas-pipes underground.

According to a survey by the Ministry of Planning and Budget (MPB) on 22 district offices in Seoul, and two in Busan, 24 offices executed 38,619 sidewalk constructions last year. That is 1,609 constructions for one district office.

According to the MPB, 30 percent of the total sidewalk constructions are concentrated in November and December. “Local governments are wasting budget on sidewalk block construction for fear of budget cuts if they do not use all the money provided by the central government,” said a MPB official.

Last year, Seoul City used 120 billion won for sidewalk block construction. Other district offices did not even have the figures to grasp how much money they spent on the construction. This is why many candidates for the May 31 election are pledging to reduce unnecessary expenditures like excess sidewalk construction.

The MPB plans to ban road construction except for urgent cases, and distribute a standard for sidewalk construction to local governments.

Sidewalk construction is a leading example for wasteful expenditure.

In fact, 40 percent of the cases submitted to the Budget Misuse Reporting Center, managed by each government department, are related to sidewalk and road excavation. Among the reported cases, 30 percent were recognized as wasteful.

One local government, which received 3 billion won for road maintenance, evenly distributed the leftover 270 million won among 6 of its 9 district offices. A resident reported budget misuse upon seeing the unnecessary sidewalk construction.

One office in Seoul repaired 150 meters of sidewalk when it was asked to repair 66 meters.

Sidewalk constructions are needed to lay communications, electric, and water supply conduits, and drainage facilities. However, construction in the same place within a few months is frequent. To solve this problem, the government is considering a comprehensive construction plan that will lay all communication, electric, and water supply and drainage facilities when initiating a single construction project.

“We are considering ways to mandate the comprehensive plan when building a new city or developing a building site,” said Jin Young-gon of the MPB.

However, the construction would cost 702.3 billion won according to consulting result implemented by Gangnam-gu office in 1997. It is expected to be costly also.

Hyun-Jin Park witness@donga.com nirvana1@donga.com