On May 18, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance notified various ministries of the results from the "Integrated Financial Project Evaluation" conducted over the past four months since January. As a result of this restructuring, 901 project budgets are set to be reduced or consolidated.
This evaluation differs from previous self-assessments conducted by individual ministries. To enhance objectivity and reliability while alleviating the evaluation burden on ministries, 153 external experts were engaged to form a "Private Expert Evaluation Group."
Out of 2,487 projects evaluated, 901 (36.2%) were identified for budget reductions or consolidations. Only 89 projects (3.6%) were deemed to be proceeding normally, while 1,497 projects (60.2%) were classified as needing improvement.
The sector with the largest budget reductions is transportation and land, with 54 projects (17.3262 trillion won) facing cuts or consolidation. This is followed by disaster safety with 84 projects (8.6024 trillion won) and defense, diplomacy, and unification with 46 projects (3.7149 trillion won).
Unlike previous self-assessments, ministries are now required to implement spending restructuring at the project level. If they fail to meet the restructuring targets by September, they must submit a justification for the unimplemented changes to the Open Budget portal for public disclosure. The Ministry anticipates that these restructuring efforts could lead to a total of 77 trillion won in budget adjustments.
The Ministry plans to link the results of this integrated evaluation to the formulation of next year's government budget. Projects that receive poor performance ratings will see budget requests from ministries reduced accordingly. Projects identified for improvement must have their necessary adjustments reflected in a performance management improvement plan, which is to be submitted next month.
Projects that demonstrate excellent performance will be rewarded. The evaluation group will select up to 50 outstanding projects, which will be exempt from evaluation in the following year. In July, a public vote will determine which projects are perceived to have high satisfaction and impact, with rewards for the project managers.
By the end of this month, ministries must submit their budget requests for 2027, reflecting the evaluation results to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance. The report on the integrated evaluation results will be made public on the Open Budget portal next month.
A Ministry official stated, "To strengthen the integrity of the integrated evaluation system, we will comprehensively address the improvement tasks raised during the evaluation process and the challenges faced by ministries, aiming to implement system improvements in the second half of the year."
Woosuk Jin, head of the evaluation group and a professor at Myongji University, noted, "Compared to previous self-assessments, only 3.6% of projects were rated as normal, indicating a stricter evaluation. The differences in spending restructuring rankings among ministries suggest that further management will be necessary going forward."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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