Choo Kyung-ho, Deputy Prime Minister of the Economy [공동취재]
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategy and Finance Choo Kyung-ho explained, “The Presidential Secretariat made an official request to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance in August for the controversial budget for the new hotel.
Deputy Prime Minister Choo responded to a related question from Representative Kim Su-heung of the Democratic Party of Korea in a question about the economy in the National Assembly this afternoon.
Deputy Prime Minister Chu said, ‘The inauguration of President Yoon Seok-yeol is on May 10, and all ministries submit budget proposals to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance by the end of May.
Did you submit it in the meantime?” he replied, “There was an application a little later than that. The official presentation was in August.”
“It was officially proposed by the Presidential Secretariat, went through a practical review by the Ministry of Finance, and was reflected in the National Assembly’s budget after going through the relevant procedures,” he explained.
Next, when Representative Kim asked about the process until the won budget of 87.8 billion is reflected, he replied, “The standard of the total cost of the project is the same, and since this is the second year of the project, the so scale.”
Deputy Prime Minister Choo said, “I did not report on this project” when asked if he had mentioned relevant details when he finally reported next year’s budget to President Yoon Seok-yeol.
In response to the criticism ‘if you didn’t report on this budget, you would have neglected your duties’, he said, “There were many projects in the office of the presidential secretary, and the total and keynote of the budget of 640 trillion won , as well as the main key national tasks, are reported to the president. Even related matters, I do not report on all of the individual projects just because they are the budget of the presidential office.”
Deputy Prime Minister Choo also said, “I am not in a position to verify every single internal report in the case,” he said.
