The city center viewed from Jamsugyo Bridge in Seoul is shrouded in fine dust. The photo is unrelated to the article content. Photo by Jang Jin-hyung aymsdream@
It has been identified that local governments misappropriated a budget amounting to 46.5 billion KRW by receiving subsidies under the pretext of creating "fine dust blocking forests" and then installing closed-circuit television (CCTV) systems.
The Government Joint Anti-Corruption Promotion Team of the Office for Government Policy Coordination announced on the 22nd that it detected a total of 1,170 cases of misappropriation after inspecting the overall related projects over the past four years.
The fine dust blocking forest creation project has been a policy promoted since 2018 to respond to the climate crisis. A total budget of 694.5 billion KRW was invested over five years by 135 local governments, including 347.2 billion KRW in national subsidies. The promotion team began inspections targeting 362 sites where national subsidies were provided from 2019 to 2022.
As a result of the inspection, 109 local governments installed facilities unrelated to the project using the subsidies. Many cases involved installing sound fountains (550 million KRW), CCTV (75 million KRW), and mist sprayers (100 million KRW), which have no effect on blocking fine dust. During additional construction using remaining subsidy funds, 30 local governments were found to have spent subsidies in unauthorized areas or installed convenience and landscape facilities.
Additionally, 24 local governments used subsidies to plant street trees, with a total of 8.3 billion KRW spent across 39 projects. Current laws prohibit the use of national subsidies for planting street trees. Some local governments arbitrarily added or changed projects without approval from the Korea Forest Service, or failed to return interest, resulting in improper settlements.
The government plans to recover 7.9 billion KRW of subsidies that were used for purposes other than the intended subsidy projects. The recovery amount will be 50% of the executed amount excluding local government funds. Furthermore, audits will be requested from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the supervisory agency, for two local governments that proceeded with projects without legal grounds, and 74 local governments will receive institutional caution measures.
To reduce misappropriation and prevent budget waste, the government intends to improve work standards and execution procedures. When basic local governments carry out projects, the system will be changed so that metropolitan governments inspect the sites, thereby strengthening primary management and supervision.
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