Busan City Council criticizes civic groups and politicians for cutting budget to support people's livelihood

When the Busan City Council recently cut the public livelihood support budget in the city's third supplementary budget, civic groups and politicians strongly criticized it.

During the plenary session on the 11th, the city council approved Busan City's 3rd supplementary budget and decided to cut 30 billion won out of 36.3 billion won to temporarily expand the cashback rate of local currency 'Dongbaekjeon' from 10% to 15% for 100 days.

In addition, the budget for the Busan-type senior job project of 3.14 billion won and the new middle-aged job support project budget of 530 million won were completely cut, and the budget for support for projects to revitalize public delivery services for small businesses was also significantly reduced.

The Busan People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy and small business groups held a joint press conference at the Busan City Council briefing room on the 15th and criticized, "The Busan City Council cut out the core budget of the '100-day emergency measure for people's livelihood' promoted by Busan Mayor Jeon Jae-soo during the supplementary budget review," and added, "A council that ignores local small and medium-sized business owners cannot be a council for Busan or a council for citizens."

They also demanded, “The Busan City Council should immediately withdraw budget cuts and adjustments related to the 100-day emergency measure for people’s livelihood and protect the people’s livelihood budget as the top priority in budget reviews.”

The Busan City Party of the Progressive Party also issued a comment on the same day, saying, "The biggest justification and purpose of this supplementary budget for Busan City was to restore the livelihood of citizens suffering from high prices and economic recession," and pointed out, "Through the city council's review process, a significant portion of the livelihood budget, which was supposed to bring warmth to the lives of citizens, was cut."

The Busan City Party of the Progressive Party went on to say, "We strongly urge you to look back painfully on the original purpose of this supplementary budget, which has put the budget for people's livelihood on the back burner," and announced that it would hold a citizens' rally to restore people's livelihood on the 31st of next month to gather citizens' voices.

The Busan City Party of the Democratic Party of Korea also said in a commentary by Lee Jae-yong, senior spokesperson, the previous day, "It is regrettable that the budget that directly touches the lives of small business owners and vulnerable groups suffering from high inflation and economic recession has been cut," and "We respect cooperative governance, but we cannot compromise on the people's livelihood."

He said, "We will closely examine the necessity and effectiveness of the public welfare projects that were cut this time, and work responsibly with Busan City and the Democratic Party city council to ensure that essential projects are properly reflected in next year's main budget."