[비즈한국] After winning the presidential election last year, the Lee Jae-myung administration designated the name of the government as the 'National Sovereignty Government.' Since then, President Lee Jae-myung has used the term 'national sovereignty' multiple times, not only when pushing for various policies and discussing insurrection trials, but even when addressing real estate issues. Seemingly conscious of this, the Ministry of Planning and Budget announced that it is expanding the disclosure of fiscal information, stating that this is necessary for the 'participatory budgeting' that embodies national sovereignty finance.
However, it has been found that behind the scenes of participatory budgeting, things that make the term 'national sovereignty' meaningless are occurring, such as some public institutions proposing projects related to themselves to secure budgets, or cases where a few individuals propose multiple projects, accounting for more than half of the total proposals.
On June 6, the third day of the Lee Jae-myung administration, the Presidential Office (currently the Blue House) announced that it would use the names Lee Jae-myung administration and National Sovereignty Government interchangeably. President Lee has continued to use the expression National Sovereignty Government since then. In his New Year's address on January 21, he stated, "The primary principle of the National Sovereignty Government's governance is solely the lives of the people." Also, on February 24, while mentioning the real estate normalization policy, he emphasized, "It is natural that expectations that the abnormal rise in house prices will continue under the National Sovereignty Government should diminish."
As President Lee emphasizes the National Sovereignty Government, ministries are also stressing the expression 'national sovereignty' in the process of implementing policies. In particular, the Ministry of Planning and Budget, which was revived under the Lee Jae-myung administration, put forward national sovereignty on February 4, stating that it would expand the fiscal information disclosed to the public starting this year.
The Ministry of Planning and Budget explained, "Immediately after its inauguration, the Lee Jae-myung administration has continuously emphasized the importance of expanding the disclosure of fiscal information, which is a major pillar alongside participatory budgeting, to realize national sovereignty finance—a constitutional value that 'the people are the masters of national finance,'" adding, "This is because the expansion of fiscal information disclosure, which allows citizens to easily and clearly monitor the entire process from budget formulation to execution and evaluation, must be a prerequisite for participatory budgeting, which enables the people to participate in the entire budget process and have a meaningful voice."
Participatory budgeting, first introduced in Buk-gu, Gwangju in 2003, has been implemented by all local governments since 2011, and has been operated by the central government since 2018. It is a structure where, if citizens propose projects, the government reviews their feasibility and reflects them in the budget after going through processes like public discussions.
However, in reality, problems are emerging where budgets are allocated to projects proposed by public institutions, or a small number of people account for more than half of the proposals. This is the reason why it is pointed out that for the sake of the national sovereignty emphasized by President Lee or the Ministry of Planning and Budget, these problems with participatory budgeting must be corrected.
According to the participatory budgeting website and the National Assembly, project proposals for participatory budgeting can be made by groups as well as individuals. Accordingly, the number of cases proposed by groups was 52 for the 2023 projects, 33 in 2024, 12 in 2025, and 26 in 2026. Among these, proposals from government ministries or public institutions were also included: 11 cases in 2023, 7 in 2024, and 5 in 2026. Some of these proposals were ultimately reflected in the budget; for instance, the 'Establishment of a One-stop Reporting ARS for Digital Sex Crimes' and the 'Construction of a DNA Filtering Misidentification Reporting System for Digital Sex Crime Videos' proposed by the Korea Communications Standards Commission were allocated budgets of 146 million won and 450 million won, respectively, in 2023.
Also, the 'Development and Distribution of Cyber Self-Diagnosis Kits for Corporate Hacking Incidents' and 'Security Technology Support for Hacking-Free Smart Apartments' proposed by the Korea Internet & Security Agency were reflected in the budget of 748 million won and 700 million won, respectively, in the same year. In 2024, 491 million won was allocated to the Korea Communications Standards Commission's 'Construction of a Special Blocking System for Internet Drug and Gambling Information,' and in 2026, 3 billion won was allocated to the Korea Internet & Security Agency's 'Creation of a Real-time Electronic Certification Service Environment in a Mobile Environment.'
However, it is pointed out that this violates the operational guidelines of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, which prohibits project proposals from local governments and public institutions. Criticism is also raised that it goes against the purpose of the system, which is to reflect the voices of ordinary citizens in the budget.
Furthermore, because there is no limit on the number of proposals per proposer, some proposers make an excessive number of proposals, making it difficult to review projects properly. In fact, the number of cases where the same person proposed multiple projects was 209 in the 2023 projects, accounting for 10.2% of total proposals, but it increased to 356 cases (29.9%) in 2024, and reached 536 cases in 2025, accounting for 74.4% of total proposals.
In the 2026 projects, the number of such multiple proposals by the same person decreased to 260, but as the total number of proposals decreased, the proportion exceeded half at 50.3%. A vicious cycle is occurring where the time and opportunity to review other citizens' proposals are reduced due to excessive project proposals by specific individuals, leading to a decline in overall public participation.