The Democratic Party of Korea and the Ministry of the Interior and Safety agreed in the deliberation of next year's budget bill to increase funding over the government proposal for key areas such as recovery from the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) fire, expansion of information security infrastructure, and livelihood services. They also agreed to swiftly handle key bills during the regular session, including the enactment of the Basic Act on Life Safety and the Basic Act on Social and Solidarity Economy.
At a party-government consultative meeting held on the 5th at the National Assembly, the two sides focused on budgets for ▲ response to the NIRS fire ▲ expansion of information security infrastructure ▲ support for revitalizing the social and solidarity economy ▲ strengthening livelihood services, and shared the view that, overall, funding should be increased over the government's original plan. The budget for the Ministry of the Interior and Safety submitted to the National Assembly totals 76.4426 trillion won.
Yun Geon-young, a Democratic Party lawmaker who serves as the ruling party secretary on the National Assembly Public Administration and Security Committee, told reporters after the meeting, "Regarding the NIRS fire, we have reached a consensus in this National Assembly budget review process to consolidate budgets that had been allocated to each ministry into the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) and to increase budgets so they can cover expenses such as building information systems for emergency recovery."
Yun said, "Regarding the NIRS fire, about 158.4 billion won is allocated in the budget to improve aging equipment," adding, "Relevant ministries are currently estimating budgets to prevent a recurrence of the NIRS fire, so it appears the amount will be increased in consultation with the government during the National Assembly's review process."
He also said, "There was a consensus that more funding than the government's budget plan is needed to expand the information protection infrastructure, and that the budget to support revitalizing the social and solidarity economy should be increased so that the character of the Lee Jae-myung administration can be clearly reflected."
He also said that the budget related to livelihood services is a target for increase. Yun said, "We intend to actively increase the budget for strengthening livelihood services during the National Assembly review," adding, "This is funding to operate an integrated system for licensing and permit civil complaints and to build an integrated administrative service platform, and the increase would be around 20 billion won."
The budget for the local love gift certificate (local currency) is set in the government plan at 1.15 trillion won, up 150 billion won from this year. On this, the party and government said they would adjust it to raise the proportion of national funding for non-capital regions and areas with population decline. Yun said, "This clearly differentiates it from the previous government, and in particular, we will raise the proportion of national funding for areas with population decline and non-capital regions."
The party and government also reached agreement on the need to handle during this regular session the enactment of the Basic Act on Life Safety and the Basic Act on Social and Solidarity Economy, as well as amendments to the Local Autonomy Act.
The enactment of the Basic Act on Life Safety was a presidential campaign pledge by Lee Jae-myung and is a bill that clarifies the responsibilities of the state and local governments to protect the lives and bodies of the people and contains the concept of "the right to safety." The Democratic Party is pushing the Basic Act on Social and Solidarity Economy to establish an institutional foundation for about 30,000 social and solidarity economy organizations to carry out activities with autonomy and independence guaranteed by the state. It stipulates the definition and basic principles of the social and solidarity economy and specifies the support responsibilities of the state and local governments.