Park Pil-soon, a lawmaker on the fiscal committee of the South Jeolla Province-Gwangju Integrated Special City Council, on Monday urged the city to pursue active renegotiations with the central government and Korea Expressway Corporation to reduce the excessive local fiscal burden stemming from the Honam Expressway expansion project.
The total project cost for the Honam Expressway expansion between Dong-Gwangju and Gwangsan IC has surged from the original 276.2 billion won ($204 million) to 810.5 billion won. Under a 2015 agreement, Gwangju is responsible for 50 percent of the total cost.
The fiscal strain has been compounded particularly by noise barrier installation costs, which alone amount to 340 billion won.
"The expansion of noise barriers was driven by changes to Korea Expressway Corporation guidelines and environmental impact assessments," Park said. "It is worth reconsidering whether local governments should bear half the enormous costs that resulted from those changes."
Park said Korea Expressway Corporation had raised the possibility of renegotiating the cost-sharing arrangement during last year's national audit, and that the city should now turn that opening into substantive negotiations. "With construction advancing further, now is a critical moment to correct the fiscal burden structure before it becomes even harder to address," Park said.
Park said the city should explore every available avenue, including formally submitting the issue as an agenda item to the prime minister-affiliated support committee for the integrated special city. "The special city, the council and local Assembly members must join forces to produce real results in reducing the local fiscal burden," Park said.
sij@heraldcorp.com
