The People Power Party caucus in the Gyeonggi Provincial Assembly has stepped up its attacks on Governor Choo Mi-ae over the province's fiscal crisis.
The PPP caucus said Thursday that Choo's management of provincial affairs was triggering "an unprecedented crisis that is dismantling the very foundations of Gyeonggi's administration."
The caucus said the province had already made history by missing the legal deadline for submitting next year's main budget — the first time that had happened — and added that the details of the budget proposal were proving "all the more dismal" as they came to light.
On Wednesday, Choo met with representatives of three civil servant unions at the provincial government and told them that 2027 personnel costs for general-grade civil servants would be funded for only nine months in the main budget, with the remaining three months to be covered through a supplementary budget later.
The PPP caucus sharply criticized the move. "This is dressed up as serving the public, but it is no different from destroying the core functions of local government and the stability of the civil service," it said. "Just days ago, the governor announced plans to sell the land and building of the Gwanggyo government complex — a facility the province moved into barely four years ago. Now it has come to cutting the salaries of the civil servants who are the backbone of provincial administration."
The caucus went on to say that trying to sell off the province's physical assets while slashing the pay of its human resources was "an irresponsible act that shakes the foundations and driving force of Gyeonggi's administration from the ground up." It also recalled that during the recent national audit of Gyeonggi Province, Choo had been sharply rebuked, with critics saying her sudden declaration of a fiscal crisis followed by a string of extreme measures made it look as though she was "talking about going bankrupt while trying to go bankrupt."
"That is exactly what Governor Choo is doing now," the caucus said. "Rather than making a normal effort to overcome the fiscal crisis, she is pushing Gyeonggi deeper into crisis and ruin and throwing what should be a stable provincial administration into chaos."
The caucus added that civil servant salaries were "the most basic and essential administrative cost for delivering provincial services to residents without disruption," and that cutting three months' worth from the main budget and deferring it to a supplementary budget was "nothing more than a shell-game trick that holds the safety and welfare of residents hostage."
"In just this one week, from the Gwanggyo complex sale fiasco to the underfunding of civil servant salaries, what Governor Choo calls 'overcoming the fiscal crisis' has laid bare a style of provincial governance that amounts to cutting off one's own flesh," the caucus said.
The caucus said it would not stand by while Choo pursued what it called unilateral governance that damaged the administrative foundations of Gyeonggi Province and conducted "dangerous fiscal experiments at the expense of residents' lives." It strongly urged Choo to immediately halt the chaotic management of provincial affairs and to present a credible fiscal normalization plan to the province's 14.25 million residents and the civil service.
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