The National Assembly demanded that the government correct improper budget execution, but the number of cases that were again asked to be rectified for the same issue reached 305, marking the "largest ever." Critics noted that similar problems are repeated every year because the government's follow-up measures are merely procedural.
◇ 305 repeated findings, 70 with the same finding for three straight years
According to the National Assembly Budget Office's recently published "Analysis of government action results on the National Assembly's rectification requests for the 2024 fiscal year settlement of account," a total of 1,987 rectification requests were adopted in the settlement of account and reserve fund reviews two years ago. Of these, 305 were matters identified with the same or similar content in 2022 or 2023, and 70 received the National Assembly's rectification request for three consecutive years from 2022 to 2024.
In particular, the 305 "repeated findings" were the most since the 2005 fiscal year when the office compiled the figures using the same standard. The share of repeated findings among all rectification requests (15.3%) was the highest since the 2012 fiscal year (15.6%). Even though the total number of rectification requests fell from a year earlier, both the number and the share of repeated findings increased.
Among budget programs flagged for three straight years is the Ministry of Education's "national university hospital support program." This is a government policy program to foster regional national university hospitals so they can reach the capacity of large hospitals in the Seoul metropolitan area, but due to disruptions in project planning and other issues, the actual budget execution rate has continued to drop from 58.5% in 2022 to 39.1% in 2025.
The Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL)'s "advance payment fund," under which the state pays overdue wages on behalf of workers who left their jobs without receiving wages due to business closures, has seen the annual payout grow every year while the recovery rate declines. The "savings encouragement fund for farm and fishery households to build lump-sum assets," operated by the Financial Services Commission, has no own-source income due to low subscriber numbers, yet the system is being kept alive by relying on contributions from the Bank of Korea and others.
◇ Marked "action completed" by just submitting a plan… no follow-up verification even when there is no improvement
The reason similar findings are repeated every year is that the government's follow-up after the National Assembly's rectification request is merely procedural. The National Assembly finalizes rectification requests on the previous year's settlement of account by September each year, and the government must submit a first action result report in January of the following year and a follow-up action result report in May of the following year.
However, even when the government reports "action completed," in reality the measures often lack effectiveness. For instance, in the Ministry of Unification's "program to improve the humanitarian situation of North Korean residents," only 79 million won out of the 154 million won budget in 2024 was executed, prompting the National Assembly to say, "Prepare an alternative that can be practically implemented." The ministry responded, "We will identify multilateral cooperation projects," and reported action completed, but in 2025 only 71 million won out of 131 million won was executed, leaving the execution rate at 54.2%.
In the case of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the National Assembly called for reducing the practices of "private contracts" and "non-disclosure of results" in policy research projects. This is because 31 out of 34 projects over the past five years were contracted by private contract, and results for 27 of them were not disclosed. Private contracts are agreements made with a specific institution or researcher without competitive bidding, making it difficult to sufficiently compare price and research quality. The ministry reported action completed, saying, "We prioritized budget allocation to competitively bid projects and those that disclose results," but the share of private contracts rose from 86.5% in 2024 to 92% in 2025.
The office noted, "Although the government reported action completed on a considerable number of matters, actual program outcomes did not improve," and said, "The government's criteria for judging action completed are not systematic." It also said, "After the May follow-up action result report, there is virtually no way to confirm whether matters classified as 'in progress' have actually been completed."