It is hard to believe that the Moon Jae-in administration has exempted preliminary feasibility surveys before approving civil engineering and construction projects totaling 88 trillion won ($80 billion) since it took office three-and-a-half years ago. This far exceeds the 83.9 trillion won worth of projects permitted without pre-feasibility assessment during the nine-and-a-half-years of the previous two administrations.
President Moon and his Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), when they were in the opposition camp, criticized the then governments as “civil engineering tribes” who bought votes by carrying out large construction projects. Since the Moon administration took over political power, however, it has rapidly expanded the scope of building projects exempted from preliminary feasibility tests.
Nothing shows this better than the recent inclusion of a 1-trillion-won airport construction near Busan that falls under the category of such projects which seem to be targeting next April's by-election to fill the mayoral vacancy in the nation's second-largest city.
If the trend continues, the total value of construction projects to receive the go-ahead without pre-feasibility surveys is likely to exceed 110 trillion won under the incumbent administration. Nevertheless, the government and the ruling party are trying to raise the ceiling for such projects, from the current 50 billion won in total cost, including the central government budget of 30 billion won, to 100 billion won, including the government budget of 50 billion won, respectively. This is nothing but the governing camp's start of pork-barrel politics in the run-up to by-elections in Seoul and Busan.
The construction industry accounts for 8.1 percent of Korea's gross domestic product and 7.5 percent of the nation's job creation. Policymakers should neither regard the sector as just contributing to quick economic stimulus nor diminish its contributions to the national economy. However, Moon and his party were bent on condemning massive civil engineering projects as pork barrels. The shoe seems to be on the other foot now.
The incumbent administration is taking the lead in massive social infrastructure construction under various contexts, showing a glaring double standard. Now that it is jumping on the pork-barrel bandwagon, voters will have to keep a close watch to prevent the possible waste of taxpayers' money.