Last year, BTS leader RM donated 100 million KRW (about 70,277 USD) to South Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs on his birthday. He said he wanted to support uniformed personnel, including soldiers, police officers, and firefighters.
“While we are performing as artists, many people are protecting our country in our place,” RM said at the time.
Then-Minister Kang Jeong Ae publicly thanked RM and heavily promoted his donation, highlighting its support for uniformed personnel. Following this publicity, the number of donors choosing designated donations, which allow donors to specify how their contributions are used, grew from a single donor to over 2,000. The total contributions increased nearly one hundred times, reaching around 1 billion KRW (about 703,000 USD).
Recent reporting has revealed that the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs has no way of confirming whether these funds were used according to donor intentions. Under current law, all donations are collected in a single account for supporting national veterans, mixing them with other resources. Even if donors request that their contributions go to specific groups, such as special mission veterans or discharged soldiers, the ministry cannot fulfill these requests.
To encourage public participation in donations last year, the ministry revised its enforcement regulations to establish a legal basis for designated donations.
“In 2024, we established a basis for designated donations, which previously did not exist under the Veterans Support Fund Act. Now it is our turn to show love for our country,” Kang said.
Despite this, the ministry’s website continues to indicate that donors can specify which area their donations will support. Critics argue that this is misleading because the law still does not allow for such designated donations.
“Even though the ministry was aware that designated donations are difficult, they promoted false information to the public, which is a serious issue,” said Lee Jung Moon, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party.
A ministry official admitted, “Donations are managed manually, and in practice, detailed allocation is difficult.” The official added that the enforcement regulation was revised for promotional purposes despite the limited scope of donation usage.
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