Incheon City apologizes for scaling back livelihood project

Incheon City has apologized for significantly reducing the timeline and overall scale of its "100-Day Project for People's Livelihoods." Song Hyun-seok, head of the city's Fiscal and Budget Reform Task Force, admitted during a press conference that the project, a key campaign promise by Mayor Park Chan-dae, has been scaled back. "The original pledge has been pushed back. We are sorry," Song stated, explaining that "we could not grasp the in-depth details with the data available at the time."

The "100-Day Project for People's Livelihoods" was a central campaign promise that included expanding the Incheon e-money cashback rate to 20% and increasing the monthly payment limit to 1 million won. Mayor Park had pledged to implement the project immediately after taking office by arranging a second supplementary budget. However, the promise of immediate implementation has already been broken.

Song further indicated that the project's scale could be reduced, with the Incheon e-money cashback rate being a potential target for cuts. "The pledge has already been pushed back, and the amount is also being pushed back," he said. Despite these setbacks, the city plans to secure funding for the Incheon e-money cashback program through the second supplementary budget, prioritizing cash-based projects for the new mayoral term.

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The original pledge has been pushed back. We are sorry. We could not grasp the in-depth details with the data available at the time. We are sorry.

The task force attributed these delays and reductions to flawed budget practices. They cited a tendency to not fully budget for year-end expenditures in the initial budget, instead relying on supplementary budgets to secure remaining funds. For instance, the Incheon e-money budget was projected to run out by July but was presented as if it would last until December.

To address these issues, the task force proposed several reforms, including introducing a fiscal strategy meeting chaired by the mayor, improving the accuracy of Incheon's revenue and economic forecasting models, establishing project pre-planning and coding systems, and basing budgets on project readiness and annual execution capacity. They also recommended implementing a policy tag system for budget projects, adopting an Incheon-style fiscal framework, and developing a system for training fiscal professionals.

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The pledge has already been pushed back, and the amount is also being pushed back.