Yom Tae-young: "I Will Be a Watchdog Over Suwon's Treasury"

Yom Tae-young, Democratic Party preliminary candidate for Suwon mayor, pledged on the 13th to establish resident oversight mechanisms against pork-barrel and wasteful budgets in municipal administration, vowing to become a ‘watchdog over the treasury.’

Candidate Yom stated, “Currently, the city is causing wasteful local finances through year-end budget execution without proper planning, excessive budget allocations to wasteful festivals and events, favoritism through project fragmentation and discretionary contracts, and increases in local debt obligations,” adding, “If elected mayor of Suwon, rather than pursuing pork-barrel events or new projects, I will prioritize accumulated regional issues based on priority order and promptly resolve implementable matters.”

Candidate Yom presented analysis results of 2009 city financial disclosure data (based on 2008) as evidence of budget waste. According to the analysis, operational expenses totaled approximately 1.51 billion won, a 7.8% increase from the previous year. Event and festival expenses amounted to 14 billion won, while subsidies to private organizations recorded a high increase rate of 18.8%, reaching 110 billion won in 2008. Additionally, despite discretionary contract increases resulting from amended regulations on local government discretionary contract operations—from ‘construction under 10 million won, services and supplies under 5 million won’ to ‘construction under 20 million won, services and supplies under 20 million won’—the number and amount of discretionary contracts in 2008 increased 2.5 times and 2.0 times respectively compared to the previous year.

Furthermore, year-end expenditures of 38.5 billion won represented a 109.9% increase from 2007, demonstrating irrational budget execution, Candidate Yom pointed out.

To ensure fiscal soundness, he proposed: ▲mandatory resident public review and public hearings before budget approval ▲mandatory pre- and post-disclosure of discretionary contract projects, expanding resident participation in municipal budget formulation and execution processes ▲budget execution efficiency through first-half and second-half financial analysis ▲activation of citizen participatory budgeting and establishment of a ‘Citizen Budget Monitoring Committee’ for budget sovereignty ▲activation of a budget waste reporting center ▲institutionalizing resident participation in local council settlement processes.

Candidate Yom stated, “Since the issue is how budgets are spent, I will establish a ‘cyclical development model’ that maintains sound local finances through detailed planning-based regional development and resulting business revenue acquisition, while reinvesting profits.”