The government will restructure the spending framework related to employment insurance, agricultural policy funds, national facilities, and post offices to curb fiscal expenditure. The Ministry of Planning and Budget said this at a meeting of the "Fiscal Structure Innovation Task Force (TF)" on the 13th.
First, it plans to overhaul the employment insurance finances that fund unemployment benefits (job-seeking benefits). In Nov. last year, the Board of Audit and Inspection noted, "Employment insurance has faced fiscal risk as expenditure surged due to the COVID crisis and stronger coverage, depleting its reserves."
Among them, it plans to revamp the "early reemployment allowance" program. This gives half of the job-seeking benefits corresponding to the remaining benefit period to a person who finds a job with more than half of the unemployment benefit period left. Although the program is intended to encourage reemployment during the unemployment benefit period, there have been criticisms that its effectiveness is insufficient relative to expense. To improve the practice of short-term tenure, measures such as imposing additional premiums will also be discussed.
Agricultural policy funds, a financial support program the government prepared for farmers, have also been placed on the reform list. Examples include agricultural management funds, agricultural machinery purchase funds, and returning-to-farming startup funds. Small, numerous funds will be consolidated, and the total volume of new funds will be managed at an appropriate level. It will also consider introducing a "sunset clause" so that funds with poor performance will no longer be operated.
Expenses for national facilities such as museums, art museums, and science museums currently depend entirely on the national budget, but the government will review a reform to allow local governments to share the burden going forward. For existing operating facilities such as the National Marine Cultural Facility, it will also prepare measures to improve operational efficiency, including developing self-sustaining revenue models and securing private resources. As for national youth training facilities, the number of facilities is increasing but the number of users is declining, so the government will refrain from building new facilities.
In addition, reflecting realities such as a decline in mail volume and digital transformation, the government will reorganize the operational system of post office facilities. To this end, it decided to pursue the construction of integrated and multi-purpose government office complexes.
Im Gi-geun, acting Minister of the Ministry of Planning and Budget (Vice Minister), said, "Without innovation in habitual expenditure and mandatory and rigid expenditure, it is difficult to secure fiscal capacity," adding, "We will build a structure in which taxes are not wasted and are used where they are truly needed."