[Exclusive] "Last Place Means Personnel Action"... Public Service Weeps Over Rapid Execution

The Pitfalls of Rapid Execution②
Record-High Rapid Execution Causes Local Chaos
Personnel Penalties for Failing Rapid Execution Targets
Orders to "Purchase a Year's Worth of Firefighting Supplies in Advance"

On January 20th, a Rapid Execution Review Meeting on Livelihood Policies was held at the Central Building of Sejong Government Complex. Choi Sang-mok, Acting Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, is speaking. Photo by Ministry of Economy and Finance

The central government’s “rapid execution” initiative, launched to revive the economy, is causing various side effects at the local level. To meet government-set targets, personnel evaluations are penalizing those who fall short, and departments failing to meet goals are told to find new projects within two weeks. The practice of advancing and spending various allowances unrelated to economic stimulus also continues.

On the 5th, Asia Economy obtained “Rapid Execution Promotion Plan” documents from several city and county offices, revealing numerous coercive or absurd directives.

“Bring projects equivalent to what you failed to execute rapidly”

City A in Gyeonggi Province decided this year to penalize departments with low rapid execution performance. The rapid execution achievement of a total of 139 departments is evaluated by group, and the 10 lowest-performing departments are selected. Heads of low-performing departments will face personnel actions in July, effectively a reprimand. The operational expenses allocated to these departments will also be cut by 5-10%.

Section and team leaders in City A are under emergency pressure. Departments where rapid execution itself is difficult are particularly troubled. Construction delayed by regulations or permits is hard for frontline officials to execute rapidly. A local government official said, “I have been a public servant for nearly 20 years, but this is the first time I’ve seen a plan to take personnel action for failing rapid execution,” criticizing that “the city is obsessed only with achieving rapid execution numbers.”

At the end of last month, City B in Gangwon Province instructed department heads who failed to meet rapid execution targets to find additional projects. Each department must submit at least five projects with the lowest execution rates among those over 50 million won, and cover any shortfall with other projects. Staff must find projects before the rapid execution inspection meeting chaired by the vice mayor on the 7th. Contrary to the original intent of spending planned budgets quickly, this has turned into a policy of just spending money as fast as possible.

To meet rapid execution targets, directives unrelated to economic revitalization are also being issued. The head of District C in Busan told employees to complete health checkups within this month. The idea is to exhaust the health checkup support budget as part of rapid execution. However, the health checkup budget provides only a few hundred thousand won per person, so its economic stimulus effect is minimal. Since most employees use all the support funds, there is almost no unused budget even without rapid execution.

Metropolitan government D plans to rapidly execute 48 billion won (70.3%) of the 68.3 billion won budget allocated to the fire department and fire stations in the first half of the year. Due to the intense rapid execution targets, firefighters must spend the annual equipment budget as much as possible in the first quarter. They even have to pre-purchase items necessary for firefighting activities, such as emergency medicines and hoses. The problem is that disasters are unpredictable. If all certain products are used up due to disasters in the first half, firefighting activities in the second half will be disrupted.

Rapid execution drops even with just one large-scale construction project

This situation arises because achieving rapid execution targets is structurally difficult. To meet rapid execution goals, advance payments must be made for large-scale projects such as roads or large buildings, which have the greatest economic stimulus effect. However, projects entangled with complex interests make rapid execution itself impossible. Some issues require intervention by the national government or courts rather than local governments. In such cases, if easy-to-spend funds cannot be found, rapid execution falls significantly short.

A representative case is District E in Incheon. District E’s rapid execution achievement rate in 2022 was 36.9%, the second lowest nationwide. Three projects?urban development, detention facilities, and a complex gymnasium?held it back. These projects could not be independently promoted by District E due to regulatory issues. The unexecuted amount from these three projects reached 63.1 billion won, about 21.6% of the total rapid execution target of 290.8 billion won. A few problematic projects significantly lowered the rapid execution rate.

Local government officials point out that side effects have worsened because the government set the highest rapid execution targets this year. On January 9, the Ministry of Economy and Finance announced it would inject 358 trillion won of central and local finances in the first half of the year. The rapid execution budget of central finances accounts for 67% of the total, and local and education finances are 60.5% and 65%, respectively?the highest ever. Ten years ago, the rapid execution budget was around 50% of the total. To achieve these sharply raised rapid execution targets, local government heads have no choice but to overextend themselves.

There is also analysis that the nationwide local elections scheduled for June next year are influencing this. Local governments that achieve excellent rapid execution results this year will share incentives totaling 15 billion won. The Ministry of the Interior and Safety supports local governments through special grants. Local government heads seeking re-election can boast of actively stimulating the local economy and receiving incentives in next year’s election.

Despite difficulties in local communities, the government maintains that the rapid execution policy is necessary. A senior official from the Ministry of Economy and Finance explained, “Budget allocation is not just a matter of numbers,” adding, “In the absence of supplementary budgets, to support the economy in the first half, actual spending that releases money into the private sector must be carried out quickly.”