Incheon 110 Households Received Emergency Disaster Relief Fund Twice... Incheon City "Plans to Recover"

On the 22nd, an emergency disaster relief fund usage notice was posted at Tongin Market in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Mun Ho-nam munonam@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Seung-jin] It has been identified that 110 low-income households in the Incheon area received the government's emergency disaster relief funds multiple times, and the Incheon city government is taking recovery measures.

On the 23rd, Incheon city announced that it plans to recover the disaster relief funds from households that received duplicate payments. The total amount of duplicated disaster relief funds received by these households ranges from 400,000 to 1,000,000 KRW per household, totaling 98 million KRW.

Incheon city provided disaster relief funds first to vulnerable groups such as low-income households starting from the 4th, before the government's integrated computer network system was completed.

This was due to repeated complaints requesting prompt payment of disaster relief funds to financially struggling households.

Among 50,000 low-income households receiving medical, housing, or educational benefits or classified as near-poverty, 5,613 households applied first for disaster relief funds using the local currency E-eum card. It was confirmed that 110 of these households later received disaster relief funds again through credit card companies.

Incheon city estimates that these households applied again for disaster relief funds after receiving notification texts from credit card companies following their initial receipt of the funds.

An official from Incheon city stated, "When receiving applications for low-income disaster relief funds at community centers, we provided guidance that duplicate receipt is not allowed and obtained signatures. Since the government's integrated computer network was launched on the 18th of this month, there have been no cases of duplicate payments."