Local Governments Announce Massive ‘Willy-Nilly’ Plans

“Build the Industrial Strategic City in northeastern Asia, the world’s best logistic port and 20,000 new jobs.” These are some titles of project roadmaps announced by city or provincial governments at the beginning of the year.

These are all huge projects that take hundreds of billions of won at least, or tens of trillions of won at most. However, with the lack of ways to develop budgets, the plans are criticized as willy-nilly.

-Facts and Issues. The city of Daegu and North Gyeongsang province said late last year that the two local governments would spend 40 billion won developing the oriental herbal industry. But the plan is already on shaky ground because it lacks ways to find financial resources.

The future plans for the Saemangeum Reclamation, unveiled by the North Jeolla province ahead of the lunar new year, were not only backed by any budgets, but also may cause a repeat of last year’s pro-environment protests because they did not come with environment evaluations.

Many of the plans were announced without prior consultation with the central government. And some of them are actually plans made by the central government that turned into local government plans.

The most serious problem related to these plans is budgetary waste. Last year a local government spent 10 billion won in consultation fees for about 100 projects. Few projects were initiated.

-Causes and Measures. All in all, local government leaders attempt to push through the plans as a way of luring votes. However, this is not received well by voters.

“The budgets for these plans are just so astronomical that they are surreal to me,” a citizen of Daegu said. “When there is a new local government or when there is an election, all sorts of pledges come out.”

According to data submitted last year by the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs to the National Assembly, about 61 percent of the country’s 248 local governments and administrations couldn’t even pay their own employees with local tax income. Financial support from the central government is essential.

“I have never heard of these plans,” Ryu Seong-geol, general budget managing director of the budget and planning administration, said. “Therefore we didn’t review them for budget allocation.”

“There should be a strict and clean line between the development of the local government and the campaign pledges of politicians,” said Professor Woo Dong-ki of the department of local administration at Yeungnam University. “Lousy plans without budgets are tantamount to public deceptions.”