YTN Radio (FM 94.5) [YTN News FM Wise Radio Life]
□ Broadcast Date: November 19, 2024 (Tue)
□ Host: Announcer Park Gui-bin
□ Castor: Choi Min-gyu, Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, Seoul Metropolitan Council
* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information.
◆ Announcer Park Gui-bin (hereinafter referred to as Park Gui-bin): This is a wise special citizen's life time with the Seoul Metropolitan Council, a legislative body that represents the voices of 10 million Seoul citizens. Today, you're the chairman of the Seoul Metropolitan Council's Budget and Accounts Committee, right? We will be with Choi Min-gyu, the Seoul Metropolitan Council member. Senator, welcome.
◇ Choi Min-gyu, Chairman of the Special Committee on Budget and Accounts, Seoul Metropolitan Council (hereinafter referred to as Choi Min-gyu): Hello, nice to meet you.
◆Park Gwi-bin: Can you say a word to our listeners and citizens first? There's a camera next to us.
◇Choi Min-gyu: Hello, I'm Choi Min-gyu, who has Sangdo 3-dong, Daebang-dong, and Sindaebang 1-dong in the 2nd election district of Dongjak-gu. I'm very happy to meet the listeners in this wise radio life today.
◆Park Gui-bin: Nice to meet you. Chairman. You brought a cup. What it says on the cup is... Will you be able to see it? Would you like a glass of integrity? What does this mean?
◇Choi Min-gyu: We don't bring this cup with great significance, but somehow we came out with this cup. I think it's a cup for the purpose of our budget deliberation and parliamentary activities with integrity.
◆Park Gui-bin: The cup is so pretty, but the writing makes me think about it again. He's in charge of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's finances. Since you are the chairman of the Budget and Accounts Committee. But it seems more meaningful to bring a cup with these words written on it.
◇ Choi Min-gyu: I will do it with integrity.
◆Park Gui-bin: We are with Choi Min-gyu, the Seoul Metropolitan Council member. He served as the chairman of the budgeting committee for the second half of the year. So you have to be responsible for the 2025 budget of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. Can you tell us your resolution first?
◇ Choi Min-gyu: As you said, we are now in charge of reviewing and deciding on the budget of the Seoul Metropolitan Government and the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education. I'm happy, but at the same time, I feel this heavy responsibility. The Special Committee on Budget and Accounts is planning to thoroughly examine how the budget is allocated to public services and other public services when the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education efficiently allocates limited financial resources. In particular, we will carefully examine whether such support for the socially underprivileged and the vulnerable is sufficiently reflected and try to ensure that citizens' voices are reflected in the budget in a balanced way.
◆Park Gui Bin: Yes. The size of the budget plan for next year was organized by the Seoul Metropolitan Government. It's 48.407 trillion won. I heard it's the biggest ever. Do you have this background? First of all, I think it would be good if you could give a general review.
◇ Choi Min-gyu: In fact, 48.407 trillion won is the best in terms of scale. People are asking if it's the expansion of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's budget. If you compare the size of the main budget in 25 and 24, 5% or 2.3 trillion won has increased like this. But now, the budget means that we set the budget for a year, but the supplementary budget, and the government subsidies. We call this the final budget at the end of the year, but compared to next year's final budget, it was said earlier that next year's budget was 2.3 trillion won, but in reality, when comparing the final budget, it only increased by 1.4%, or 680 billion won. There will be an increase or decrease in each subject, but most of them are about 550 billion won in government subsidies this time. So, in the case of government subsidies, most of them are used for government-set projects or we do business with Seoul Metropolitan Government as a matching fund. So, in conclusion, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's current budget is all-time. I will say that it is not that the Seoul Metropolitan Government has overstretched its expansionary finances.
◆Park Gui-bin: Come to think of it, doesn't the price increase a lot in the meantime? If you think about the inflation rate, it was 6,000 won.
◇ Choi Min-gyu: It's 1.4%, so it's not more than inflation. When you compare the final budget in practice, it's only 1.4%, so it doesn't exceed the inflation rate.
◆Park Gui-bin: That's right. That's why it's not an extension. Technically.
◇ Choi Min-gyu: That's why it looks more because of state subsidies.
◆Park Gui-bin: You're going to examine how and where you're going to use it in a scale within a reasonable budget, so what criteria are you going to judge?
◇ Choi Min-gyu: We will conduct a preliminary review of 11 budget reviews from the 21st to the 29th, and then the preliminary review from December 2nd to 12th will be conducted by our preliminary review committee. The preliminary review has not been completed yet, so we talked about the general review earlier, but it's a little too early to tell you about the general review because the review has not been completed yet. On behalf of the general evaluation, as you said, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's budget for next year is almost 50% of the 48.407 trillion won, and I will do my best while playing a national role as chairman of the committee. I'll tell you this.
◆Park Gui-bin: Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon explained this budget plan with a focus on citizens' health and safety. And this time, the Budget and Accounts Committee says there are more than 30 people, including the chairman. Isn't communication and cooperation very important? How do you think you've decided to lead this committee?
◇ Choi Min-gyu: We have a total of 33 members of the 11th Budget Committee you just mentioned, and there are 22 members of the People's Power and 11 members of the Democratic Party of Korea. I think the most important thing is communication and cooperation. So, as I'm the chairman of the committee, I'm going to lead the committee based on the inclusive leadership of listening to many other lawmakers rather than expressing my opinions. The budget has the most direct impact on Seoul citizens. So I review it from various angles, and I think the idea of the council members is what you have in the region because they are working in the region. So, I think that this committee, which I hear a lot of opinions from residents through lawmakers, will actually be used where citizens really need it.
◆Park Gui-bin: Yes, the budget review. I'm sure you're still busy, but when is the busiest time from now on?
◇Choi Min-gyu: As I said earlier, after the 11 standing committees over there, we'll start on December 2nd, and I think we'll probably stay up all night from the 2nd to the 12th.
◆Park Gui Bin: Can't you go home?
◇ Choi Min-gyu: It's been like that every year.
◆Park Gui-bin: When I see the lawmakers, they can't go in these important times. He couldn't go home. I think you need to take care of your health. It's suddenly getting cold these days. From December, you will be busy with the budget review because of the budget settlement review, but as a Seoul Metropolitan Council member, you have to do what you have to do for the citizens because you have your district. Choi Min-gyu, a member of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, would like to report to citizens. I should report to the citizens that I want them to know about this. If there's anything you're doing, I'm going to point out about three things today. What content should you report first?
◇Choi Min-gyu: In the first half of the year, I was active in the Planning and Economic Committee, but in the second half of this year, I moved to the Urban Safety Construction Committee. In the administrative audit, I looked at the people who do this behind the road and the signal number at the construction plant, and I saw that the signal players were put into the field after just 4 hours of training. As a result, a lot of things happened about this safety accident. This could now make safety issues more serious in the future.
◆Park Gui Bin: Yes.
◇Choi Min-gyu: So now, with short education, signal riders can work, but anyone can work, but I think it's difficult for them to respond to various dangerous situations.
◆Park Gwi-bin: You're right. I think the four-hour plan is a little short.
◇ Choi Min-gyu: That's right. In fact, some construction institutions are supposed to deploy signal water, but there are cases where it cannot be deployed when you go to the construction site. If another situation happens inadvertently while on duty.
◆Park VIP: That's right. It's going to be a big problem.
◇ Choi Min-gyu: Such poor management and education systems can pose a threat to our signal takers and to our citizens who drive on the road, so we need to introduce more systematic programs instead of four hours. I want to say this. And if you look at the signalers, they work like that, but in fact, they need to improve the environment, improve their working environment, and so on. I think that those parts are needed systematically. In the future, I think that the Seoul Metropolitan Government should focus more on traffic safety and come up with measures such as policies and measures to prepare a more secure environment for citizens.
◆Park Gui-bin: So in this administrative audit, if you go to the road construction site, there are people who signal with their hands if they arrange the big cars on the road construction site and the cars on the general road. Their management and arrangement needs to be greatly improved. He pointed this out.
◇Choi Min-gyu: If you look there, there are many mannequins. There are also very dangerous mannequins that say, "Go this way instead of signal numbers," and they made it like a human, but if there are actually signal numbers, you have to distinguish them. There should be a device that further distinguishes that this is a mannequin and this is a real person, but there doesn't seem to be much of that.
◆Park Gui-bin: A lot of things need to be improved. Member pointed out this part. And let's move on to the second citizen report. This is the ordinance proposed by the lawmaker as a representative. It's an ordinance on the prevention of school violence and the prevention of violence against women. What's this about?
◇Choi Min-gyu: I issued the revised ordinance on the prevention and countermeasures of school violence at the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education in May last year, and in recent years, school violence has been increasing a lot, and then this serious problem of very young students getting caught up in this violence is emerging, especially now elementary schools are experiencing a lot of such violence. Then, I don't know the perpetrator of the elementary school, but victims often remain like this as a lifelong trauma, and to solve this problem, I need psychological counseling and now the most important mental counseling so that the superintendent can heal and protect the victims. So, as we know in elementary school, children who were abused are very mentally damaged, so when they were young, they stayed at the level of simple treatment such as a nurse's room when they were injured. Although it was not a hospital, it was a nurse's office, but the fundamental purpose of this ordinance was that mental treatment counseling should be conducted from elementary school because children are suffering too much of this mental pain.
◆Park Gui-bin: The Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education's Ordinance on the Prevention and Countermeasures of School Violence was revised in May last year. Another thing is that there are a lot of true articles about female violence these days, and especially these days, don't you call it social violence? In the past, the expression "dating violence" was used, but the expression itself was wrong. If you do it wrong, you take it romantically, so it's social violence. I understand that the language has changed like this now. It's gotten that serious, but you've revised the ordinance.
◇Choi Min-gyu: This is also a part of the Seoul Metropolitan Government's ordinance on the prevention of violence against women and the protection and support of victims, but it's already been a while recently. You said that the dating violence you just mentioned is now social violence, but it was an ordinance to respond to it, but actually, what was very difficult when I did this is that there is no higher law.
◆Park Gui Bin: Is that so?
◇ Choi Min-gyu: There is no law, so we have higher laws and wait for a while at local governments. I kept persuading the Seoul Metropolitan Government to pass this ordinance because it's not something else, but because it's an ordinance on support, the Seoul Metropolitan Government can apply even if there's no higher law, so I wasn't going to do it because there's no higher law. There should be an ordinance like this that can guarantee a necessary safe life that protects and regulates victims at the Seoul Metropolitan Government level, but it took a while because there was no such thing, but I think there is no higher law now, but students and women should be more protected socially. So we enacted these ordinances to protect them more and more socially and to provide more generous support to the victims.
◆Park Gui-bin: That's right. You explained the Seoul Metropolitan Government Ordinance on the Prevention of Violence against Women and the Protection and Support of Victims. Let's do the third citizen report briefly. You recently pointed it out in your five-minute remarks. It's a problem of the deficit structure of the village bus. Is there any structural problem with this?
◇ Choi Min-gyu: I think there are about 4 structural problems, but since the village bus is now operated on a private basis, it is a little different from the city bus that receives 100% of the deficit deposit.
◆Park Gui-bin: I see.
◇Choi Min-gyu: But in my neighborhood, the new subway or light rail has been opened recently, so that the subway will be created on the road that the village bus used to use and light rail will be distributed. Customers have to operate them while reducing the deficit because there can be no village buses. Second, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's financial support standard has been changed to support part of the operating deficit as much as the actual number of operations of the company. In the past, the deficit was reduced to some extent, but what has changed now is that if there are 10 buses in operation, not all 10 buses are operated. But I have to turn all the teenagers around to guarantee them that they are teenagers. But as the citizens have already said, you can't roll an empty car if you go to a subway station and go by light rail. Then the financial difficulties get worse. So I don't think this support method makes sense. And third, there are companies that introduced eco-friendly buses and electric buses to each village bus in accordance with its environmental policy, and the purchase cost of vehicles is very high. It's a situation where you have to deal with the purchase cost and operating deficit at the same time, and I think this is the most important thing. Fourth, there is an ordinance on financial support and limited licenses for passenger car transportation projects in Seoul, and if there is a city bus route and a town bus route, you will be able to travel within 4 city bus routes. But as you know, most people travel on the city bus basis. As you can see, the village bus is not approaching it, so the deficit is bound to accumulate because it should not overlap.
◆Park Gui-bin: That's why you pointed out the problem of the deficit structure of the village bus. You only have 30 seconds left. So we'll hurry up and wrap it up now. It's a question we always ask about the Seoul City Council corner. Choi Min-gyu's legislative icon is ○○○. How would you fill it up?
◇Choi Min-gyu: Now that I am the chairman of the Budget and Accounts Committee, I would like to say that Choi Min-gyu is a financial expert and a troubleshooter who protects your citizens' safety.
◆Park Gui-bin: Choi Min-gyu, a financial expert and citizen safety solver, please say a word to our citizens.
◇ Choi Min-gyu: Citizens' interest and support are the driving force for me to work, so please always pay attention and make a lot of complaints so that I can study according to those complaints and work for you, so please continue to pay a lot of attention and point out.
◆Park Gui Bin: Thank you. So far, Choi Min-gyu, chairman of the Budget and Accounts Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council, has been a member of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. Thank you.
◇Choi Mingyu: Yes, thank you.
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