"How to travel with a 7% discount using Onnuri gift certificates." That is the pitch one travel agency attached to its overseas tour packages. Among the offerings is an Egypt trip that includes business-class airfare and three nights on a Nile River cruise. What looked like a guide to shopping at a traditional market turns out to be a guide to discounted foreign travel. At last week's parliamentary audit of government agencies, lawmakers pointed out that the online traditional market section, which accepts Onnuri gift certificates, was selling cruise packages priced in the 2 million won range and imported audio equipment costing 7.95 million won. Tax money meant to draw shoppers into neighborhood alleys is instead subsidizing promotions for expensive overseas trips.
Onnuri gift certificates were introduced in July 2009. The aim was to redirect shoppers headed for large discount chains toward traditional markets. When the government subsidizes a discount on the certificates, consumers save on their shopping and merchants gain customers. That is the rationale for adding tax money to the discount. Yet because a business keeps a storefront inside a market, high-priced imported goods and travel packages qualify for the same benefit. A voucher meant to revive markets has turned into a government-funded discount coupon. In the first half of this year, the top two recipients of Onnuri certificate payments were a pharmacy and a clinic in Seoul known as a destination for Mounjaro prescriptions. They took in 26 billion won and 10.2 billion won, respectively. Not all of that came from obesity drug sales, but such a concentration of benefits invites a second look at what the program was for. Consumers are not to blame. They simply used a discount window the system left open.
On the 1st of this month, the government announced what it called the first overhaul in 18 years, saying it would steer more discounts and rebates toward traditional markets and local neighborhood businesses starting next year. Hospitals, clinics and stores with annual revenue above 3 billion won are already barred from joining the program. Pharmacies are permitted on the grounds that they draw foot traffic to surrounding businesses. The first thing to verify is whether the long lines outside those pharmacies actually translate into sales for the shops next door. Six days after the overhaul was announced, the minister of SMEs and startups told the parliamentary audit that the government would consider restricting which items can be sold online. But the measures still failed to screen out cruise packages and high-end imported goods offered by companies that keep a storefront inside a market. Selling a lot of gift certificates is not the same thing as market merchants doing good business. Should tax money spent to revive markets end up building a discount business that merely borrows the market's name?