The Incheon e-eum cashback program, which has eased residents' spending burden and supported the sales of local small business owners, will be fully suspended sometime next week. The 258.1 billion won budget allocated for this year has run dry in just six months.
Incheon Mayor Park Chan-dae held his first press conference since taking office at the city hall briefing room on the 10th, announcing, "From the point next week when the budget is exhausted, we will be forced to temporarily suspend Incheon e-eum cashback payments." As a result, the existing 10% cashback payments will all stop.
Incheon e-eum returns a portion of payment amounts as cashback, serving as a means of reducing living costs for residents and as a pillar supporting sales for small business owners. For this reason, the cashback suspension has raised concerns that it could simultaneously spread into a contraction in household consumption and a blow to local commercial districts.
The problem originated with the budget estimate. This year's Incheon e-eum budget was set at 258.1 billion won, an increase of about 100 billion won from last year's 154.7 billion won, but it was exhausted faster than expected, leaving no capacity for second-half payments. "An unprepared policy was hastily crafted for the election, which led to inaccurate budget estimates," Park said, targeting the previous city administration.
The shortfall was not limited to Incheon e-eum. According to a review by the transition committee for the ninth popularly elected government, essential project costs not reflected in this year's main budget alone amounted to 644.1 billion won. This is a scale difficult to cover even by mobilizing the maximum amount of local bonds the city can issue (220 billion won). In addition, the future fiscal burden, including an additional 1.4 trillion won during the term and fund repayments, was assessed at approximately 5.5 trillion won.
Park had also considered continuing the cashback by issuing additional local bonds but ultimately decided to rule it out. "Piling more debt on top of already heavy debt only leaves a bigger burden," he stressed. "This halt is a halt to protect Incheon e-eum."
Instead, the city will enter an emergency management system under the principle of "assess the situation first, then execute with accountability." To this end, it will immediately launch a fiscal and budget reform task force involving external experts and working-level staff, headed by Song Hyun-seok, former deputy chairman of the transition committee. The task force will serve as a control tower to review hidden debts and wasteful elements.
In this process, Park's core campaign pledge, the "100-Day Project for Livelihood Recovery," will also be temporarily deferred. However, Park said, "As soon as we solidify the fiscal foundation, we will do our utmost to bring back Incheon e-eum cashback as quickly as possible."
