"Disaster Contingency Fund Amounts to Only 400 Billion Won"
On the 28th, the People Power Party refuted Lee Jae-myung, leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, who claimed that the government's disaster contingency fund was sufficient to support the large-scale wildfire damage in the Gyeongbuk region.
Song Eon-seok, a member of the People Power Party and chairman of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee, issued a statement saying, "Leader Lee and the Democratic Party are deceiving the public by presenting inaccurate figures without properly verifying the facts, making it seem as if the wildfire response budget is sufficient. We accuse Leader Lee of staging a public fraud."
Earlier, before the West Sea Defense Day commemorative ceremony, Lee held a supreme council meeting in Daejeon and criticized the government and ruling party, saying, "There is already a total of 4.87 trillion won in national contingency funds available for wildfire measures," and "They are lying as if the budget has been cut and wildfire measures cannot be properly implemented."
Regarding Lee's claim that "each ministry's contingency fund amounts to 970 billion won," Representative Song countered, "The budget available from each ministry's disaster and emergency response funds is only 200 billion won." According to Song, among the 970 billion won for disaster and emergency response, ▲417 billion won was allocated last year for disaster-related recovery costs, ▲307 billion won was designated for river and aquaculture support by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, and ▲100 billion won was used for pine wilt disease control by the Korea Forest Service, all of which have already been earmarked or spent.
Song also emphasized that the purpose-specific contingency fund available for disasters is less than 400 billion won. He stated, "Due to the Democratic Party's unilateral budget cuts, the remaining general contingency fund of 800 billion won is solely for intelligence budgets," and "Of the 1.6 trillion won in purpose-specific contingency funds, 1.3 trillion won is explicitly designated in the budget principles for free high school and free education for five-year-olds, making it unusable for other purposes." This directly contradicts Lee's earlier statement that there was a contingency fund of 2.4 trillion won.
Song also pointed out that Lee's claim that the national treasury debt burden is 1.5 trillion won is not true. Song said, "It is merely an advance use of next year's budget," and criticized, "There is absolutely no capacity to respond to additional disasters such as typhoons and floods, which are likely to occur during the summer."
Song raised his voice toward the Democratic Party, saying, "They are playing with numbers and lying to cover up the mistakes of the budgets they unilaterally cut," and urged, "For the swift extinguishing of wildfires and support for recovery, Leader Lee should stop political acts and first offer a sincere apology to the people."
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