Parliament's deliberations on extra budget gain traction

The parliamentary budget committee on Saturday referred an extra budget bill to its subcommittee for fine-tuning, accelerating its deliberations with the end of the current legislative session just three days away.

The National Assembly's long-delayed review of the 11.2 trillion won ($9.8 billion) budget began in earnest Friday when three opposition parties lifted their parliamentary boycott a day after President Moon Jae-in's disputed pick for labor minister quit.

The liberal president, who took office in May, has been vigorously pushing for the supplementary budget to bankroll his plan to create jobs largely in the public sector, one of his key election pledges.

The subcommittee review is set to take place on Sunday and Monday, Assembly officials said. The budget committee plans to hold its plenary session on the bill on Tuesday when the legislature is expected to set up a vote on it.

It still remains to be seen whether the opposition parties will agree to the original bill.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party and other parties oppose the use of the budget for creating public-service jobs.

They also maintain that the bill could violate the National Finance Act, which stipulates an extra budget can be drawn up only during war, natural disasters, economic recession, mass unemployment or crucial changes in cross-border relations.

"We aim to handle the budget (bill) by next Tuesday, but hiring public servants with the extra budget would impose a burden on future generations," Lee Hyun-jae, the LKP policy chief, told Yonhap News Agency over the phone.

"We also have an issue over whether the bill meets the legal requirements," he added. 

The ruling camp has argued that the bill has no legal problem, regarding the current situation as posing a high risk of mass unemployment. (Yonhap)