NCRC’s Poor Performance Is Not Limited To Issues Concerning Korean Adoptees.

Hankook Ilbo Article:

Did Funds Meant for Vulnerable Children’s Savings Accounts End Up as Salaries for the Low Birthrate Committee?


Posted to Paperslip on August 20th, 2025.
Thanks to a Paperslip Contributor for the link.
Translation via ChatGPT.
Please see the original Korean article linked above for graphics, whose images and text we have not reproduced here nor translated.

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For context: Most Adoptees only know that NCRC (National Center for the Rights of the Child) deals with adult Overseas Adoption issues. However, NCRC is responsible for many other issues related to children in Korea. The translated Hankook Ilbo article below illustrates how NCRC’s incompetence and misuse of funds is not limited to issues of adult Korean Adoptees — but rather extends to other social welfare issues as well. It’s little comfort, given that NCRC now manages ALL former Korean Adoption Agency files, and is the Korean Government Agency through which ALL future birth family searches by Korean Adoptees must be submitted.

Please note that what is referred to as “The Child Rights Agency” in the article below is the SAME thing as NCRC.

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Hankook Ilbo Article:
”Did Funds Meant for Vulnerable Children’s Savings Accounts End Up as Salaries for the Low Birthrate Committee?

By Won Dara | August 20, 2025 | Page 2

A government matching fund program for vulnerable children saw limited execution — and leftover funds were redirected to unrelated staff salaries.

The "Didim Seed Account" (Child Development Support Account) is a savings program where the government matches funds deposited by or for children from low-income families. Although the government announced that the program would be expanded to cover 270,000 children this year, data from last year shows that only about 66% of eligible children actually received support. Due to poor performance, unspent budget funds were redirected to cover salaries at the Presidential Committee on Aging Society and Population Policy.

Additionally, the program is poorly managed. The Child Rights Agency, which operates the program under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, manages the project manually, leading to hundreds of payment errors every month. Critics argue that it’s a serious problem when a program for society’s most vulnerable lacks proper systems and has such a low budget execution rate.

How the Program Works – But Fails to Reach Its Goal

The Didim Seed Account allows children to save money, and the government matches up to 100,000 KRW per month if a sponsor deposits up to 50,000 KRW. The Child Rights Agency helps gather donations and deposits them for children without sponsors. However, if no donation is made, the government match also doesn’t happen.

Eligibility has expanded since its 2007 launch, now covering children aged 0–17 in foster care, basic livelihood recipient households, or low-income brackets. The number of eligible children has grown from 72,000 in 2023 to over 273,000 in 2025. Parents or guardians can apply at local welfare offices or online.

Yet, as of the end of last year, only 135,940 out of 206,000 eligible children (66%) actually received funds. Many didn’t apply simply because they were unaware of the program. Furthermore, 23,713 children (14.9%) enrolled in the program but received no sponsorships — and thus, no government support. This points to a lack of outreach and insufficient fundraising efforts.

Despite overseeing the project, the Child Rights Agency only provides sponsorship to about 30,000 children. Other NGOs like ChildFund Korea and Good Neighbors also assist in promotion and fundraising.

A Child Rights Agency representative admitted: “Of our operating budget of just 51 million KRW, about 30 million KRW goes to bank transfer fees, leaving little for publicity.”

Hundreds of Payment Errors Monthly Due to Manual Management

According to documents obtained by Rep. Lee Soo-jin (Democratic Party), the Agency continues to handle sponsorship funds manually using Excel, causing hundreds of errors every month. These include incorrect account numbers, name mismatches, and closed accounts.

Error statistics by year:

  • 2021: 7,253 errors (approx. 126 million KRW)

  • 2022: 8,191 errors (approx. 162 million KRW)

  • 2023: 10,242 errors (approx. 199 million KRW)

  • 2024 (so far): 4,592 errors (approx. 109 million KRW)

Even in 2025, there were 215–322 payment errors per month during the first quarter. A representative acknowledged that “managing nearly 30,000 cases manually leads to inevitable errors” and added that system budget requests to the Welfare Ministry were repeatedly ignored.

System Failure and Budget Misuse

The Welfare Ministry blamed a failed 2021 project to upgrade the social security system, saying that the delay impacted the fund management system. However, critics point out that the Child Rights Agency had already been running the program for over 1.5 years before attempting to set up any system — an oversight from the start.

Leftover budget funds were not reinvested into the program but diverted. Of the 126.7 billion KRW allocated in 2024, 42.4 billion KRW went unused. Similarly, around 37 billion KRW is expected to remain unused this year.

Instead of using these funds to fix issues, the Welfare Ministry redirected 1.25 billion KRW in May to pay salaries at the Low Birthrate Committee (which had its budget cut). A Committee official admitted, “We couldn’t even pay staff salaries, which are legally mandatory expenses, so the Welfare Ministry covered them using leftover funds from the Didim program.”

Rather than addressing poor execution, the ministry also proposed cutting 29.99 billion KRW from the program budget this year due to “declining deposits caused by the economic downturn.”

Welfare officials only began tracking the payment errors after media investigations began. The agency stated, “We lacked the staff to operate the project properly,” and promised that next year’s budget will finally include funding for a proper system.

Experts Call for Accountability

Although the Welfare Ministry and the Child Rights Agency claim that no misuse of funds occurred and that all errors were later corrected, critics say the core issue is systemic mismanagement.

Son Jong-pil, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Public Finance, said, “It’s shocking that such a major government program was run manually. This is not how public funds should be handled.” He continued, “Instead of cutting funds for programs that underperform, the government should investigate the root causes and work to improve execution.”

Rep. Lee Soo-jin added, “It’s not enough to just allocate welfare budgets on paper. Without proper systems, the support never reaches the people who need it most. Children born into poverty are trapped in it — we must build a system that meets the scale of the program.”

Contact: dara@hankookilbo.com