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11.5 trillion won for chronic pork-barrel politics

Posted December. 20, 2013 03:12,   

한국어

“Pork-barreling,” a practice that lawmakers add funding for their districts to the government’s budget proposal, is estimated at 11.5 trillion won (10.86 billion U.S. dollars) for the 2014 budget proposal. While dragging on the bills directly related to people’s livelihood, lawmakers, regardless of their political affiliation, are keen to secure state funding for local constituencies when their political interests are at stake.

According to the announcement by the National Assembly and the government Thursday, all of the Assembly’s 16 standing committees except for the Budget and Account Committee requested a total of 11.5 trillion won (10.86 billion U.S. dollars) increase in the 2014 budget proposal for the 48 central government agencies. In contrast, the requested amount of reduction remained only at 1.5 trillion won (1.08 billion dollars). Since the Ministry of Strategy and Finance sticks to the policy that a budget increase can be made only within the range of saving amounts in the proposal, difficulties are expected in the course of deliberation at the Budget and Account Committee.

Most of the requests for budget increases are focused on infrastructure projects related to railroads, roads and ports and R&D projects, ranging from small projects worth of 500 million won (472,366 dollars) to large projects worth of 50 billion won (47.23 million dollars).