Local governments should spend the tax money wisely

The Local Extinction Countermeasures Fund system by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety in South Korea is a program, starting in 2022, that evaluates response plans of local governments at risk of extinction and supports them with 10 trillion won over 10 years, at 1 trillion won per year. However, an analysis by The Dong-A Ilbo's reporting team revealed that 19 out of 107 basic local entities had fund execution rates under 2% this year. Yet, they received 104.05 billion won for next year's budget. Seven of these entities had a 0% fund execution rate but still received an additional 26 billion won. This suggests a haphazard distribution of significant tax funds.

Examples include Yangyang County in Gangwon Province, which received 6.4 billion won for a cargo terminal near Yangyang Airport but couldn’t use it as the project stopped and flights were discontinued. Yet, the county received 11.2 billion won for next year's budget. Pocheon City in Gyeonggi Province couldn't use the 1.6 billion won allocated for foreign worker dormitories due to local opposition but still received an additional 500 million won. Dong District in Busan received 6.4 billion won for a youth cultural facility on a former school site, but the plan was halted because the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport had a similar project in other location. Nevertheless, the district office was allocated another 11.2 billion won. This reflects a lack of scrutiny of project feasibility and budget allocation by local governments and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, leading to budget wastage.

Concerns were raised from the beginning that the Local Extinction Countermeasures Fund would end up as blind money distribution among local governments, deviating from its original purpose. With the exclusion of Seoul and Sejong, the support targets 15 provinces and 107 basic local entities experiencing serious population decline, totaling 122 entities. By last year, 1,691 investment plans had been registered. Quickly reviewing numerous plans makes it difficult to discern quality. Many local governments reportedly spend millions on PR companies to produce impressive plans, raising questions about the effectiveness of funding entities that lack policy-making capacity. Criticisms arise over inflating local powers due to poor post-execution checks.

By 2047, all 229 cities and counties nationwide are expected to enter the stage of extinction risk. This underpins discussions on developing broader regional strategies centered around key cities. Given the entrenched low birth rate trend, responding to population extinction equates to luring residents from other regions. Distributing the budget evenly across 100 local governments leads to wasteful competition and spending. The focus should be on selecting and intensively supporting substantial policies to counteract population concentration in the capital region.