It has been seven years since the resident participatory budgeting was introduced. But it seems to have failed to reflect the voices of the island’s residents.
Issues on committee formation and budget coverage have yet to be solved.
Mike Laidman reports.

Gross misuse of Jeju’s participatory budget has been discovered.
Tens of millions of won from the budget, introduced seven years ago, has been spent on renovating community centers - something not approved by residents.
Other facilities, some of which saw investments of hundreds of millions of won, have failed to find operators and are now left unattended.
It now goes without saying that the participatory budget has not been successful.



Between 2015 and 2019, 2.5 billion won was spent on facilities which are not being used. The money was essentially wasted.
Failure to reflect the voices of residents and then poor budget execution and management are being named as key factors for the current situation.

As of the end of 2019, the resident participatory budget committee consisted of about 1,300 members.
Among them, 73 percent were male, and only 27 percent were female.
Additionally, the inclusion of socially disadvantaged classes was just too small.
The ratio could never ensure fair representation.
The planning and outcomes for the resident participatory budget are supposed to go public, but 86 percent of the 43 communities with access to the funds did not post their usage on their respective websites.




The Local Finance Act has been revised to enable residents to participate in budgeting, execution, and management.
However, related ordinances and the Jeju Special Act do not reflect this other revision.
The participatory budget is limited to local projects proposed by area residents, and at only 20 billion won, is a mere 0.5 percent of the province’s annual budget.



[Reporter] Mike Laidman
[Camera] Park Byeong-june
[CG] Yu Byeong-gyu

The Provincial Audit Committee has requested that the resident participatory budgeting system be improved in 16 areas, including the composition of the resident participatory budget committee and project management. If these changes go ahead it will still remain to be seen the effect they have throughout the island.

Mike Laidman, KCTV