The North Korean government is requiring citizens to use vouchers for summer vacations, stoking public discontent, Daily NK has learned.
“Party committees and people’s committees in each province and directly-administered and special cities received orders from the Workers’ Party and Cabinet to issue vouchers for regional resorts and force people to vacation there during the muggy summer weather,” a source in North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on Wednesday.
Accordingly, the central government in Pyongyang has instructed each organization to have their members attend resorts such as Munsu Funfair and Mangyongdae Funfair, along with issuing vouchers for those resorts, the source said.
However, those vouchers are not being provided free of charge, but must instead be purchased out of pocket by each organization. As a result, the organizations are reportedly distributing the vouchers to the workers on their rolls and deducting the cost from their salaries.
In effect, North Koreans are being forced to visit resorts against their wishes.
North Hamgyong Province, which runs along the coast, has opened beaches and hotels for workers’ summer vacations and sent vouchers to the financial departments of each workplace. The organizations are also planning to deduct some of their workers’ monthly wages to pay for the vouchers, the source explained.
“In effect, the government is forcing people to spend money on the cultural and recreational activities that it claims to be providing in July and August. These orders are aimed at showing support for the [government’s] announcement that the [COVID-19] outbreak has improved, but it’s angering people who’ve been struggling just to put food on the table,” the source said.
While North Koreans are disheartened about having to tighten their belts for ten days or more just to cover the cost of a two-day vacation, they have no choice but to go since the party gave the orders, ostensibly with their best interests in heart, the source said.
“People are doubtful about whether it’s alright to gather together for meals and recreation when [COVID-19] hasn’t completely gone away, and they seem unsure about what they ought and ought not to do,” the source continued, adding, “People are viewing these orders as a frightful joke, coming as they do when the government’s anti-epidemic emergency system is still in place and they’re still required to abide by pandemic restrictions on a daily basis.”
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