Park Gyuntaek: "Isn't the Board of Audit and Inspection ashamed in front of the audited agencies?"

Use of 500 Million KRW for Appreciation Activities Expenses and Overseas Business Trip Costs

Assemblyman Park Gyuntaek

The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), which holds the authority to conduct accounting audits and duty inspections of the central government, local governments, and public institutions, has been criticized for managing its own budget in a haphazard manner.

On the 15th, Park Gyuntaek, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea representing Gwangsan-gap, Gwangju, issued a press release stating, "The BAI used 500 million KRW from the 'Audit Activity Expenses' budget allocated for domestic audit activities in 2022-2023 for overseas travel expenses and other purposes."

The BAI's audit activity expenses are budgets allocated to perform accounting audits and duty inspections of the state, local governments, and public institutions. However, over the two years from 2022 to 2023, the BAI used approximately 500 million KRW of the audit activity expenses for ▲ taxi fares ▲ encouraging participation in bids by specialized companies in the ISP establishment sector and covering additional project costs ▲ conducting external audits for the ICC (International Criminal Court) ▲ travel expenses for lobbying member countries related to candidacy for external auditor of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.

The total budget allocated by year was 20.9 billion KRW in 2020, 20.1 billion KRW in 2021, 18.2 billion KRW in 2022, and 17.0 billion KRW in 2023. The government budget proposal for next year includes 16.9 billion KRW.

Park said, "The frequency and amount of reallocating the budget for overseas travel expenses or IT operation costs unrelated to domestic audit activities have been increasing recently at the BAI," and criticized, "I want to ask how the BAI will respond if such cases are discovered while auditing the audited institutions."

He continued, "The fact that the audit activity expenses are being reduced every year and that usage for purposes other than intended has become routine suggests that unnecessary budgets were requested from the start," adding, "As a constitutional institution and the highest audit body of the Republic of Korea, the BAI should not allow budget reallocations unrelated to audit activities before discussing cuts or shortages in the audit activity expenses budget."