Special Audit Applied to Excessive Establishment of Presidential Advisory Council

The National Assembly has decided to apply a special audit to the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) over issues of budget waste, including the excessive establishment of presidential advisory council and contracts of research fellowship, and eight projects, including building a light-weight electric railway between southern cities of Busan and Gimhae.

Additionally, on the four issues, including expansion of the National Security Council (NSC), an organization that has been much strengthened in terms of function and roles under the Roh administration, the BAI is planning to put particular emphasis in next year’s audit on government agencies and then report the results to the National Assembly.

An assembly subcommittee in charge of the accounts audit, headed by Kim Jeong-boo, under the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts said that the ruling and opposition lawmakers on the subcommittee consulted together on the special audit issues on December 4, and that it would put it to a vote at a general meeting of the special committee on December 6 before submitting it to the plenary session.

The assembly subcommittee applied a special audit to the BAI for a variety of issues like budget waste by presidential advisory council, management of government-funded organizations, management of the Korea Container Terminal Authority, a dam construction project at the Hantangang river, management of executive agencies, the delayed construction of nuclear waste dump site, and the current state of the job security project.

There has been already an inspection by the BAI on the issue of research fellowship paid to presidential committees, but the inspection is highly likely to be expanded because of the National Assembly’s request.

The assembly subcommittee has also decided to carefully examine such issues in the audit on government agencies as the expansion of the NSC, reserve funds issues like excessive spending on personnel expenses, government spending on service fees for various committees, and the spending of the natural disaster relief fund, and to request the audit result to be reported to the National Assembly.

National Assembly Law Clause 127, Article 2 stipulates that the National Assembly shall request a special audit by the BAI on issues it finds problems with during the audit on government’s budget spending. The BAI should submit audit results to the National Assembly within three months.

Young-Hae Choi yhchoi65@donga.com