The frequency of natural disasters, including heavy downpours, has risen due to climate change, but the disaster recovery system remains stuck in the past, hindering swift recovery, a state-run research institute noted. It said rigid budget execution reduces the effectiveness of recovery projects, and the practice of funneling work to locally connected corporations persists. Critics also said requests for materials related to disaster recovery projects impose an administrative burden on local governments, forcing officials who should be in the recovery field to spend time at their computers preparing documents.
According to The Korea Institute of Public Administration (KIPA) on the 12th, senior research fellows Won So-yeon and Oh Yoon-kyung diagnosed and analyzed unreasonable institutional factors that hinder swift recovery in their recently published report, "Application plan of special provisions for public safety in the disaster management system: Focusing on the heavy downpour recovery system."
Statistics show that from 2016 to 2024, the type with the largest damage and recovery costs was heavy rain. The total damage over 10 years was tallied at 2.8 trillion won. The bigger problem is that damage from heavy rain has shown a steady upward trend over the past 10 years. In particular, it has surged rapidly since 2022. Damage from heavy rain in 2015 was only 1.2 billion won, but in 2020 the annual damage exceeded 1 trillion won.
Even as disaster damage grows, the recovery system—from damage assessment to recovery plan development, budget securing, contracting, and construction—operates mainly on standard administrative procedures and budget principles, failing to fully reflect the urgency and specificity of disaster sites. In particular, voices are growing on the ground about difficulties in securing budgets for disaster recovery and challenges stemming from rigidity in the budget execution process.
In this regard, Won and Oh proposed speeding up recovery projects through special provisions for budget reallocation and negotiated contracts. They said, "In disaster recovery projects, rigidities in the budget execution process—such as settling remaining balances and having local governments shoulder shortfalls—undermine the effectiveness of local governments' recovery projects," adding, "It is necessary to broadly recognize special provisions allowing budget reallocation for disaster recovery projects."
They also said, "Although disaster recovery projects must proceed swiftly, the criteria for allowing negotiated contracts are vague, so most local governments prefer competitive bidding," adding, "For disaster recovery projects, it is necessary to apply special provisions for negotiated contracts more broadly."
They added, "Although local government ordinance provisions that favored locally connected corporations have been revised in many localities, the practice of funneling work still continues," noting, "For disaster recovery projects, it is worth considering a measure to recommend nationwide bidding rather than limiting it to areas declared special disaster zones."
The operation of the disaster recovery project management system was also flagged as a problem. They said, "The disaster recovery project management system is an important mechanism for tracking each local government's project progress, but in disaster-affected jurisdictions, where there is already a shortage of personnel to handle recovery projects, the task of entering project status also becomes a burden," adding, "It is necessary to review ways to simplify the input requirements."