Presidential Office Discloses Special Activity Expenses for the First Time Under Lee Jae-myung Administration

For the first time since the launch of the Lee Jae-myung administration, the Office of the President has released a detailed report on the official use of its special activity fund. The disclosed figures offer a closer look into how confidential expenses—often labeled as ‘opaque budgets’—were allocated between July 16 and August 29.

According to the Office of the President, a total of 309 cases amounting to 464,226,000 won were settled over this two-month period. The largest expenditure—approximately 158 million won—was directed towards “building and managing diplomatic, security, and policy networks.” Specific instances include 4.5 million won spent on July 16 to establish cooperation networks for intelligence on major countries, as well as 580,000 won on August 6 for collecting information related to North Korea policy, and 640,000 won on August 7 for intelligence on issues within the South Korea-U.S. alliance.

Notably, diplomatic spending peaked between August 23 and 28, coinciding with President Lee Jae-myung’s overseas trips for summit meetings with U.S. and Japanese leaders. On August 24, the office spent nearly 8.8 million won on “gathering opinions for trade negotiations” and “establishing a U.S. diplomatic network,” while on August 25, about 9.9 million won was used for a roundtable with diplomatic and security experts. Additional outlays included 30 million won on August 16 for “consulting services in diplomatic and security activities,” 10 million won on August 4 for “management of security-related networks,” and 2 million won on July 18 for “network establishment related to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).”

Expenses related to personnel screening and public integrity were also disclosed. On July 21 and 25, 1.05 million won and 1.14 million won, respectively, were spent for “collecting personnel verification information and opinions,” with a total of 5.73 million won allocated for similar purposes across six separate appropriations from August 1 through August 11.

These dates overlap with major personnel changes: the withdrawal of the education minister nominee Lee Jin-sook on July 20, the resignation of the gender equality minister nominee Kang Sun-woo on July 23, and subsequent new nominations announced on August 13. During this same period, an additional 2.82 million won was spent across three instances for “gathering information on official misconduct,” along with further spending on “collecting information regarding personnel matters” and “establishing personnel networks.”

Special activity funds were also allocated to support “information gathering and management on political issues,” “exchange for political network building,” and “listening to public sentiment and opinion polls”—efforts aimed at enhancing communication and public consensus within the administration.

Special activity funds are reserved for government operations requiring confidentiality, such as investigations and intelligence gathering, and are generally exempt from detailed documentation or receipts. This lack of transparency has led to persistent criticism about such “shadow budgets.” In its disclosure, the Office of the President refrained from revealing explicit details of recipients or activities, instead offering broad descriptions such as “listening to public sentiment concerning OO reforms” and “gathering information on key state issues.”

Note “This article was translated from the original Korean version using AI assistance, and subsequently edited by a native-speaking journalist.”

Photo=Yonhap News Agency