"Does it matter if it's 'fly' or 'Biden' right now? Someone's life is about to fly..."

On the 27th of last month, a person in charge of welfare at a ward office in Seoul who sat opposite a reporter in the daytime complained.

It was difficult to understand why President Yoon Seok-yeol's remarks during his visit to the United States were not discussed less about the error of the new welfare system, while the battles over the remarks filled the screens and pages day after day.

He said, "It is our responsibility to bow our heads like criminals without saying, 'The system is not running yet' to a complaint about when the salary will be paid. did.



Simultaneous errors occurred in the 'next-generation social security information system' that the government opened on the 6th of last month.

The project, which started in April 2020 and took nearly two and a half years to develop, was engulfed in controversy right after its opening, with 120 billion won in blood tax for development alone.

The error has not been fully caught even after a month of remedial work.



The problem is that it is the vulnerable and powerless small citizens who have no place to turn to who are suffering from this situation.

There were also setbacks in the payment of 37 types of salaries that many people depend on for their livelihood, including basic living expenses, housing benefits, single-parent subsidies, and basic pensions.

Vulnerable people who did not receive support in a timely manner were pushed to their own lives, such as urgently getting loans or reducing their living expenses.


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“I have nowhere else to go.”

After it was announced to the world that the new welfare system was not working properly through SBS <8 News> on the 13th of last month, anonymous reports poured into the reporter's mailbox.

In various communities where recipients gather to share information and rely on their hearts, there have been piles of articles complaining about damage or expressing concerns.

Some of the stories the reporter confirmed among the many stories of struggling through hardships that would not be easy to fathom if the life they faced were not overwhelming were as follows.

· "Basic living expenses didn't come in, but I moved last month and the information doesn't come in due to an error. I set all utilities, communication expenses, etc. to go out on the 20th of the paycheck, so the balance is 0 won. It is retroactive to the next month. But this month, my son has a school trip, so maybe it's good." (9/20)



· "I am working at a low-income self-supporting workplace in Yangsan, Gyeongnam, and 10 out of 30 people did not receive housing benefits. is to die without that money, and now it's a mess."

(9/20)



· "The selection of recipients, which was supposed to be in early September, was delayed by a month due to a computer error. They say no. This is not even retroactive… It looks like I won't be able to get support for treatment."

(September 21)



· "I didn't receive 600,000 won, including the support for single parents, so I got a loan in a hurry. They say they will give it to me next month, but these days, even if the card price is delayed by a few days, I have bad credit. Interest is expensive too, ha."

(9/22)



· "I run a nursing home in Incheon, and the payday of the employees is approaching, but I can't seem to pay them. I have 30 employees, so I need to borrow 80 million won right away. How do I get this big amount of money right now?"

(9/23)



· "Income and wealth are not reflected, so when applying in July, it is difficult to register for the next upper class, which is said to be in early September. The deadline for the next upper class application for a state-funded study abroad program is near, but I can't use it. It's not my fault, but it's so embarrassing that I can't sleep."

(9/29)


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What happens in the development process


This development project is a complete implementation of the 'Happiness eeum' (social welfare management network) for local government officials opened in 2010 and the 'Hope eeum' (social security information system) for welfare facility workers that integrated the government-wide welfare projects in 2013. It is an integrated and reorganized project.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare was in charge of the project management, and the technical side of the project was managed by the Korea Social Security Information Service.

The actual development was done by the LG CNS consortium that won the project.



The consortium started full-scale development in April 2020, but prior to that, the project passed a preliminary feasibility study in May 2018 and completed the establishment of the 'informatization master plan' in 2019.

The amount of contracts the consortium and the government have signed so far alone exceeds 120 billion won.



Citizens, local government officials, and welfare facility workers met during the interview process, saying, "I don't understand at all."

It was incomprehensible that the system developed by the government and large corporations spending a lot of money and time to promote it was so full of errors.

In order to be convinced, it was necessary to check the facts about what happened during the development process and the decision-making process during the opening process.



SBS obtained data from the Steering Committee meeting where the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Korea Social Security Information Service, and a consortium participated to discuss the development process.

We also met several key developers who participated in the business.


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① Developer departure and Corona 19


First, the 'developer issue' continued throughout the development process.

Developer issues were raised in almost all meeting agendas, and development personnel were repeatedly leaving and finding people to fill them.

Developers who couldn't stand the high workload or had job offers from other places often left.

Intermediate or leader-level experts were often left out, and the process of continuing work by adding additional inputs was repeated.


COVID-19 was also a factor.

April 2020, when development began in earnest, was the time when the COVID-19 pandemic began in earnest.

Because each part was different, it is said that if one developer was confirmed, the schedule was delayed by that much.



② Late development of data conversion/application system


The second problem was the data conversion problem.

The new system was to bring data from 126 institutions together, so it was necessary to call the old data so that it could be used in the new system.



In the meeting materials on May 3, four months before the opening, it was written that "the quality of the converted data is insufficient and there is a lot of volume to be developed."

A month later, on June 2, he said, "The current conversion team alone cannot solve the problem," and formed a task force in charge of data conversion three months before the opening, which should have been in full swing after the conversion was completed.

Even a week before the opening, the 'major issue' was still data conversion, and the development rate was only 95.4%.

The data validation rate was 92%.



Experts point out that the data conversion in this business should have been completed before starting the test, as it is a system for the vulnerable and there should not be any gaps.

Park Jin-ho, vice president of the Korea Information Processing Society (Professor Dongguk University), said, "If the system involves money, such as life, labor costs, and subsidies, of course, it is correct to open the system after 100% of the data is converted." The fact that it was opened without it was able to foresee problems that could cause damage to either side.”



Person A, who participated in the development, said, "The work of converting the vast amount of data in the existing system that has been accumulated for more than 10 years should have started from the start of the project in April 2020, but it continued to be delayed and it was only after a year that it failed."

He added, "Usually, such a large project should be stabilized through testing for the remainder of the period after completing the data conversion six to four months before the opening, but it was not possible," he added.


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③ Incomplete tests


The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Social Security Information Service emphasized the 'number of times' again, saying that they conducted a total of 11 tests before the system was opened, including 6 integrated tests and 5 test and pilot operations.

However, the story of the developers involved in the development and testing process is completely different.



Developer B said, "First, the development of the application system was not timely due to the development manpower problem, and more importantly, the data conversion was delayed.

Regarding the integration test several times, he said, "I made and used some test data, but even this was not done with enough data."



Mr. C also said, "Since the development of the transition continued until the opening, I used randomly generated data for testing."

He continued, "Isn't the test data created by the application developer not clear?" "It was not enough to verify the error because it was the data to check whether the system works as planned, not to find the error."



The authorities were not aware of this.

At a press conference held on the 19th of last month, ahead of the payment of 30 types of salaries, including basic living expenses, the Korea Social Security Information Service said, "The integrated test was conducted 6 times, and pilot operation and test operation were conducted 5 times." Since we could not test with it, we made virtual data and tested the linkage, etc.

He continued, "We thought that the opening would be possible with sufficient quality, but after the opening, the actual data were very different from our expectations, so unexpected situations occurred."



The materials of the Steering Committee meeting obtained by SBS also contained a pessimistic evaluation of the tests conducted before the opening.

In the document on May 3, it was written, "The integration test performance rate is low, there are many defects, and the action rate is low."

Looking at the results of the '5th conversion test' contained in the data on June 14, only 70.6% of the data verification results matched.

"Error when opening, expected"


It is said that before and after the opening, the development situation was not perfect, so internally and externally, they shared the prediction that "errors are inevitable during opening."



Officials in charge of the Ministry of Health and Welfare said in several phone calls with reporters, "We have already delayed the opening several times, so we decided that we could not postpone it any longer." , after the opening, we agreed to fix it by reflecting the voices of the field.”



Those who participated in the development were not aware of this situation.

Developer A said, "Since it was not fully verified, there was a mutual agreement on whether it would be best to catch errors and stabilize them as soon as possible after opening."



Regarding this, Lee Dong-hee, chairman of the National Digital Transformation Project Deliberation Committee (Professor at Kookmin University) said, "There may be various circumstances, but in that case, it is natural to delay the opening in consideration of the circumstances." The service should have been approached from a different level.”

“I have not received any reports or orders from the president.”

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If something goes wrong, it's common sense for someone responsible to step in and apologize and promise quick follow-up.

In the process of covering this error issue, it is impossible to erase the feeling that the response is insufficient compared to the seriousness of the issue.



The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Social Security Information Service have verbally apologized several times at a briefing attended by some of the reporters.

Neither the Ministry of Health and Welfare, nor the intelligence service, nor the LG CNS consortium in charge of actual development seem to even consider an apology.

Isn't it the reporters who should apologize?



Both the final testing and the opening of the system took place with the Minister of Health and Welfare being vacant for four months.

Coincidentally, the final decision maker within the ministry at this time is Cho Kyu-hong, who was appointed as the Minister of Health and Welfare the day after the opening.



When asked if he had reported to the president regarding the opening of the next-generation information system, which was held ahead of the personnel hearing, Cho said, "There was no direct report on the opening of the next-generation information system." replied in writing.

As a reporter who covered the case, we cannot help thinking of an additional question that asks, "Aren't you taking this issue that has pushed many vulnerable classes to a cliff?"



Even so, Vice Minister Cho said, "The digital revolution is fundamentally changing the health and welfare policy environment," and said, "Intensive support for the vulnerable and sustainable I think it is important to create a welfare foundation.”

"We will continue to innovate for the future," he said.

"Leave the burden of work to the front line"


On the 14th of last month, the day after SBS first raised the issue, the Ministry of Health and Welfare held a press conference to seek understanding.

He also said, "If there is a problem with salary payment, I will go back in September or October at the latest so that all support can be provided retroactively," he said.



Worried about the payroll problem, it became a reality.

Welfare officers in each municipality had to manually deal with tasks that were stopped because the system did not work as they were forced to go to work on weekends.

A person in charge of welfare at a ward office in Seoul said, “The work is almost paralyzed. .



He continued, "It is a problem to treat those who received less or not received money retroactively to the next month, but even worse, if money is put in, you should not give or receive more."

“If the money is paid incorrectly due to a computer problem, it should be refunded, but it is also the officials of each local government who are accusing and insulting them by saying, ‘Spit out the money we gave wrongly’.”



Welfare facilities such as nursing homes also have a lot to say.

The facilities complained that they did not receive sufficient notice regarding errors in the initial opening.

Regarding these complaints, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said, "Since it was not possible to contact more than 50,000 welfare facilities individually, we notified the local government and related associations, and uploaded a video of the briefing session on YouTube last month."



Operators of welfare facilities operated with government subsidies said, "Even now, the problem that we sent to cities, towns and districts did not come from the municipalities continues."

They are frustrated, saying, "If I could just pay the employee's salaries normally, I would have endured somehow, but I can't do this or that."



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"Developers, weeping and editing"

Developer B, however, asked me to consider the situation, saying, "Developers who are working on modifications have hardly slept for over 20 days."

He said, "There are developers who complain of panic symptoms after seeing the situation of the vulnerable class through media reports. "He said.



Developer C also said, "Now, rather than accusing me of 'where did I go wrong', what should be done is to work together to solve the problem.



However, they predicted that the revision work would take longer than the beginning of October, which was initially suggested by the Ministry of Health and Welfare as a stabilization time.

B and C predicted, "I expect to be able to use it without worrying about errors by the end of November."

Whose tears are to be wiped away


But if the payroll problem continues in October, that would be a problem.

There are already a lot of vulnerable people who have been pushed to the brink because their wages did not arrive on time last month.

Their stories and voices have only been communicated less publicly.



In the process of continuously reporting the matter, those who have provided anonymous information to reporters have often confessed their difficulties due to errors in the system.

It is counted in the hand that the response to the reporter's request for an interview has come back one after another.

Most of them declined to be interviewed, saying, "At least, I'm embarrassed to complain publicly that it's difficult for me to live on the subsidy." "Please help someone who is in a more difficult situation than me."



One of them said in a difficult phone call, "I couldn't connect to the phone, so when I went to the ward office, I said, 'I'll add up the salary I didn't pay this month next month,' and came out looking at the ground."

He said, "I have a life and death problem at stake in that one month, and I felt so miserable that I couldn't endure and wait for even one month."