Gov’t to set up inter-ministerial teams to monitor welfare funds waste

The government plans to set up a permanent inter-ministerial organization to be tasked with preventing welfare funds from being leaked by duplicate application and illegal beneficiaries. The government also plans to increase the number of welfare officials employed by local autonomous governments in an attempt to prevent loopholes in executing welfare budgets.

The plans are apparently aimed at implementing “welfare without a tax increase,” one of the administration’s key tasks. But some experts say that the government will have a limit in securing welfare funds just by simply increasing hiring more welfare officials and better monitoring welfare expenditures.

A senior government official said Sunday that two departments will be set up within the welfare ministry to specialize in monitoring and preventing the waste of welfare budget. “The Ministry of Planning and Finance, the Ministry of Security and Public Administration (MOSPA) and other related ministries are making last-minute coordination regarding how many government officials will be assigned (to the new departments),” the official said.

The two new departments will be tasked with reviewing the feasibility of new welfare projects and identifying overlapping projects and managing fiscal estimates and statistics for welfare spending. The Planning and Finance ministry plans to assign to the new departments budget officers in charge of ensuring the smooth implementation of the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit, while the Security and Public Administration Ministry assigned with officers in charge of organizational management.

To prevent welfare frauds, the new teams also plans to cooperate with a task force consisting of senior officials from nine government ministries, including the finance, education and justice ministries. While the task force will be active until the end of this year, working with the police and the prosecution, the new teams at the welfare ministry will be permanently operating to monitor the overall execution of welfare funds.

The government also plans to have local autonomous governments hire more welfare officials to address their chronic manpower shortages. In recent years, there have been a series of suicides committed by welfare workers because of excessive workloads. There have been few welfare officials performing too many tasks, leading to blind spots in welfare implementation, which results in increased welfare frauds. The central government plans to increase welfare personnel mostly in areas with high number of cases involving welfare fund embezzlements and frauds at elderly care facilities and child care centers.

A finance ministry official said that the government, in principle, plans to implement all welfare policies specified in President Park Geun-hye’s campaign promises even a tight budget situation. “To that end, we should thoroughly see to it that not a single penny of welfare money is wasted.”

In addition, the central government plans to overhaul the Social Security Information System in order to prevent assistance for low-income people end up in high income earners’ pockets.