Construction of a memorial park for Sewol ferry victims to delay by more than a year

A week ahead of the ninth anniversary of the Sewol ferry disaster, attendees including relatives of the victims of the April 16 disaster pay their respects in front of the Sewol ferry at Mokpo New Port in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, on April 9. By Sung Dong-hoon Reporter

Construction of a memorial park for victims of the sinking of the Sewol ferry has been delayed by more than a year as fiscal authorities raised concerns about the cost of the project at the last minute. The project, which was aimed to be completed at the 10th anniversary of one of Korea's worst maritime disasters, never got off the ground. The bereaved families are criticizing that the government is intentionally stalling for time.

According to the government on January 14, the project to build the “April 16 Life Safety Park” was approved at this year’s first financial project evaluation committee, presided over by Kim Yoon-sang, Second Vice Minister of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, on January 5, and entered the stage of coordination between ministries. The project is to build a memorial park honoring the victims of the Sewol ferry disaster at Hwarang Amusement Park in Danwon-gu, Ansan, and was originally expected to be completed in 2022. The ferry went down in waters off the country’s southwest coast on April 16, 2014, killing 304 people out of 476 passengers, who were mostly high school students heading to Jeju Island for their field trip.

The evaluation committee voted to reduce the cost of the project, which was proposed by the Korea Development Institute (KDI). After reviewing the appropriateness of the cost for six months, KDI proposed an alternative of 49.2 billion won, which was reduced by 1.1 billion won from the previous one. As the construction cost increased from 48.3 billion won to 50.3 billion won due to rising costs while promoting the project, the Ministry of Economy and Finance requested the KDI to review the cost appropriateness of the project in May last year, arguing that the cost should be checked again.

If the ministry had not left it to review the cost appropriateness, the construction could have started immediately between May and June last year, but the start of the construction was delayed by nearly a year and a half due to a series of review processes. In particular, according to the KDI's appropriateness review report, the construction of the memorial park is expected to start in October. Five months were added to the timeframe to revise the design due to cuts in construction costs.

The bereaved families had hoped to see the start of the construction in time for the 10th anniversary of the tragedy in April. In fact, the government's original plan was to start construction in 2021 and complete it before the 10th anniversary.

There is also a controversy over whether such complicated administrative procedures were necessary. The decisive reason why the ministry asked the KDI to review the appropriateness of the project is that the project cost exceeds 50 billion won, the minimum cost requiring a preliminary feasibility study.

However, the project was an exempted project from a preliminary feasibility study and others under the Special Act On Investigating The Truth Of The April 16 Sewol Ferry Disaster And Building A Safe Society. This means that there was no problem under the current law even if the cost was not reviewed regardless of the 50 billion won threshold. However, the ministry decided to review the appropriateness of the cost of the government input project based on its arbitrary judgment.

There are further controversies. According to Article 49 of the Ministry of Economy and Finance's total project management guidelines, inflation is excluded from the cost increase rate if the ministry judges the adequacy of a specific project in accordance with the mid-term increase in project costs. In other words, contrary to the guidelines, the ministry unreasonably reviewed the cost by taking issue with the increase in project costs due to rising prices, which is why the bereaved families suspect that the government is "deliberately" delaying the project.

"It feels like they are dragging their feet by finding fault with administrative procedures," said a member of the Sewol ferry victims' family committee. A government official explained, "We had to see the total cost reflecting the inflation because the construction cost exceeded 50 billion won and tried to go through a procedure applying for other projects."

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.