The governing and opposition parties agreed Wednesday to pass a supplementary budget bill scaled at 4.56 trillion won ($4 billion) to help alleviate the difficulties facing ordinary households hit by rising energy prices.
The bill is an increase of 300.8 billion won from the original proposal, with most of the increases set aside for financially strapped college students and subsidies for energy expenses at nursing homes, party officials said.
Of the money, 250 billion won will be used to help students, while the remaining 50.8 billion won will be spent as subsidies for nursing homes over winter, they said.
Floor leaders of the governing Grand National Party (GNP) and the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) agreed that the National Assembly will approve the bill during a plenary session on Thursday, the officials said.
The ruling party attempted to railroad the original bill last Thursday but failed to get parliamentary approval due to the absence of some GNP lawmakers from a meeting of the Assembly's Budget and Accounts Committee. Their absence led to the failure to meet a quorum.
The bulk of the supplementary budget will go to the Korea Electric Power Corp. (1.6 trillion won) and the Korea Gas Corp. (840 billion won) as subsidies to help them reduce operating losses linked to soaring oil prices. As a result, taxpayers, particularly working-class families, are expected to pay less for gas and electricity.
The revision came after the DP boycotted parliamentary approval of the original bill, citing subsidies for inefficient public corporations.