The government has selected 43 budget projects requested by the public and will push to reflect them in next year's draft budget. The list includes programs to provide subscription voucher support for artificial intelligence (AI) services such as ChatGPT for vulnerable groups and to allow free use of the national counseling call center 132.
The Ministry of Planning and Budget said on the 16th that for the 2027 participatory budget, 16 government ministries requested a total of 43 projects and 381.3 billion won. Introduced in 2018 to allow the public to directly take part in the budgeting process, the system began to be actively revitalized by the government this year.
Key requested projects include: ▲ AI service voucher support for vulnerable groups ▲ free use of the legal counseling call center 132 ▲ revitalizing direct transactions of livestock products (building a direct-trade system from farms to restaurants) ▲ creating neighborhood living hubs (repurposing idle state-owned properties such as closed police substations into spaces for local residents) ▲ establishing a system to prevent and manage solitary deaths ▲ building a monitoring system to prevent the distribution of illegal obscene information on closed digital services ▲ creating eco-friendly national cemeteries ▲ a media news credibility evaluation system ▲ support for autopsy fees.
Whether the proposed projects will be included in the government budget will be decided early next month after a preference vote by the citizen participation panel and a budget review by the budget office of the Ministry of Planning and Budget.
Meanwhile, the government is also receiving from the public proposals related not only to budget projects but also to expenditure efficiency. So far, 214 proposals to curb wasteful spending have been submitted, including: ▲ saving the budget by adjusting military supplies based on the preferences of MZ service members ▲ identifying the status of repetitive promotional video production in the public institutional sector and proposing improvements.
Expenditure efficiency proposals can be submitted by anyone through the Participatory Budget website at https://www.mybudget.go.kr until the 30th.