Pledges with underestimated budgets to face revision

A number of ministries say the budget required for implementation of the campaign pledges of President-elect Park Geun-hye were underestimated, leading observers to conclude that certain pledges will inevitably be revised considering the government`s limited financial resources.

In its briefing to the presidential transition committee Monday, the National Science and Technology Commission recommended that if the government raises the portion of its research and development spending to 5 percent of GDP as pledged by the next administration, the annual R&D budget should be raised from 16.9 trillion won (16 billion U.S. dollars) this year to 21.8 trillion won (20.6 billion dollars) in 2017.

Even when calculating the necessary budget based on the current GDP level, President-elect Park will need an extra 6 trillion (5.68 billion dollars) to 8 trillion won (7.6 billion dollars) over her five-year term. But the 1.04 trillion won (985 million dollars) that Park’s camp estimated in the presidential campaign translates into less than a fifth of the recalculated extra budget.

Park said she will expand the national R&D budget, including for both the private and public sectors, from 4.03 percent of GDP in 2011 to 5 percent in 2017. As the commission, when estimating the budget, assumed that R&D investment by the private sector would more than double the nation’s economic growth rate every year over her term, implementation of the pledge could cost even more.

Amid growing fears over the needed funds to implement election pledges, ministries and agencies tasked with the mobilization of the necessary budget are operating in emergency mode. In a briefing to the transition committee Monday, the Board of Audit and Inspection had as one of its goals saving 5 trillion won (4.73 billion dollars) by detecting elements of waste from this year’s budget.

A source at the transition committee said, “The board reported that it will prevent waste of state budget to the maximum level by focusing on its capacity to detect overlapping investments by autonomous governments and public organizations.”

peacechaos@donga.com