Gyeonggi Province Selected as Outstanding Organization in Citizen Participation Budget Evaluation by Ministry of Interior and Safety

Gyeonggi Province has been selected as an outstanding organization in the 2018 Citizen Participation Budget evaluation of local governments conducted by the Ministry of Interior and Safety.

According to Gyeonggi Province on the 18th, the province was selected as an outstanding organization in evaluation across five sectors including the level of citizen participation, performance of citizen participation budget organization operations, completeness of citizen opinion documents, support for citizen participation activities, and development potential. The province will receive a commendation from the Ministry of Interior and Safety as well as 3 billion won in financial incentives.

Gyeonggi Province has undertaken various innovations including improvements to the citizen participation budget system to realize 'fiscal democracy with direct citizen participation,' a campaign promise of the 7th elected provincial government this year.

To expand the scope of citizen participation in the budget, the province increased the budget allocated for citizen participation from 5 billion won last year to 50 billion won this year, a tenfold expansion. Additionally, the province prepared citizen opinion documents on local government projects valued at 300 million won or more and submitted them to the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly to ensure citizen opinions are actively reflected in budget reviews.

Furthermore, to enhance transparency in financial operations, the province built a citizen participation budget website for the first time this year to disclose financial operation information. The province and cities and counties share proposed citizen proposals to prevent citizen opinions from being excluded from work distribution processes.

In addition, the province expanded the number of citizen participation budget committee members from 76 to 100 and strengthened the capacity of these members by enhancing budget school and research group activities.

Lim Jong-chul, Director of Planning and Coordination at Gyeonggi Province, said, "Citizen participation budgeting is a system in which citizens directly participate in the budget formulation process, ensuring that budgets are invested where provincial residents want them and transparency and accountability in finance are enhanced." He added, "Taking this award as an opportunity, we will continue to operate the citizen participation budget system in a substantive manner."

The province plans to hold a performance report meeting in January next year to seek continuous improvement and innovation of the citizen participation budget system.