Some Gyeonggi Local Governments Caught Improperly Budgeting Without Investment Review
Some basic local governments in Gyeonggi Province failed to follow proper preliminary procedures required by law, including budgeting for projects without undergoing investment review, and were caught by the provincial government.
The province announced on the 24th that it conducted investment reviews on 194 projects from the province and 31 cities and counties within Gyeonggi over the past year, issuing recommendations for reconsideration for 14 percent of them (27 cases) and making inappropriate determinations for 2 cases.
Additionally, reviews on 5 projects were deferred.
The two projects deemed inappropriate due to insufficient feasibility were Seongnam's project to install an additional station at Migeum Station on the Bundang-gu Line (122.4 billion won) and Suwon's project to establish the Na Hye-seok Memorial Hall (122.4 billion won) (45 billion won).
The deferred projects include Pyeongtaek's sewage treatment facility installation (10.5 billion won), Ansung Stream circular bike path construction (7 billion won), Icheon's ecological stream restoration (5.8 billion won), Ansung's Manga-dae small stream maintenance (5.5 billion won), and Gwangmyeong's sewage pipe maintenance project (5 billion won).
The province discovered that Pyeongtaek and other cities had reflected and executed design costs in advance before the investment review and thus postponed the review entirely.
The province is considering not providing national and provincial government subsidies for projects deferred by these cities and counties even if they pursue them again.
The Local Finance Act (Article 37) requires investment and financing reviews for projects with budgets of 2 billion won or more (4 billion won for cities and provinces).
A provincial official said, "We plan to take strong measures such as not providing subsidies to cities and counties with poorly planned projects that attempted to follow procedures belatedly after budgeting project costs."