Yoon calls for transparency in government subsidies

Jun 14, 2023, 07:30 am

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President Yoon Suk-yeol speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential office in Seoul on June 13, 2023./ Source: Yonhap

AsiaToday reporter Lee Wook-jae

President Yoon Suk-yel ordered Tuesday to establish an oversight system to prevent the illegal government subsidies, saying such corruption amount to “fraud against taxpayers and exploitation of future generations.”

During a Cabinet meeting, Yoon said that while subsidies had increased by approximately 2 trillion won (US$1.57 billion) during the previous administration, “moral hazards and tax leakages were rampant due to the absence of a proper management and oversight system.”

In order to strengthen verification of various private subsidy projects ordered by the previous Moon Jae-in administration, the government decided to drastically strengthen filtering of the overall subsidy process by lowering the size of projects subject to external verification from 300 million won to more than 100 million won.

“Taxpayers’ precious money became the prey of political populism and under the previous government alone, the national debt grew by 400 trillion won. It is the government’s responsibility to immediately dig out and correct wrongdoings,” Yoon said.

“The corrupt network of vested interests and corruption must be destroyed,” he added.

He also instructed all ministries to carry out a full review of subsidy budgets and reflect the results in next year’s budget.

“Subsidies should only be given to organizations that honestly submit the details of their use and other relevant material,” the president said. “They should never be given to organizations that do not do so or use them illegally or wrongfully outside their purpose.”

His remarks followed the government’s recent release of audit results for non-profit private organizations. As a result of auditing, the government found cases of irregularities and corruption, including a total of 31.4 billion won in state subsidies to private organizations under the previous administration.

#Yoon Suk-yeol #government subsidy