Pyongsong recently levied non-tax burdens (quasi-taxes) on its residents as part of efforts to implement the country’s new infant child care policy, Daily NK has learned.
“The Pyongsong Municipal People’s Committee decided that in order to successfully implement the party’s new childcare policy, which was adopted in April, they will be replacing old equipment at factories producing products for infants. To pay for this, the municipal party ordered every household to contribute KPW 4,000,” a reporting partner in the province told Daily NK last Friday, speaking on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.
On May 3, the municipal party gathered workers from every enterprise and neighborhood office to talk about how best to fulfill the party’s new infant care policy. The conference concluded that improving manufacturing equipment was essential to implementing the policy and pleaded for people to provide economic support. The municipal committee claimed that the factories producing key childrens’ goods, such as city factories producing powdered milk, yogurt and other dairy products, had equipment that was too old to function properly and that the factories and municipal people’s committee could not resolve the issue by themselves.
The committee went on to say that “in our harmonious, family-like socialist society, there is no distinction between ‘my child’ and ‘your child.’ We must continuously produce and provide the products essential to raising infants and young children, and farms and factories cannot bear this responsibility alone. The issue can only be solved when we work together as one, so instead of complaining, let’s embrace our fundamental principle of self-reliance to resolve the problem.”
As a result, the committee settled on a proposal for each household to contribute KPW 4,000, with heads of neighborhood watch units going around each household to collect the funds. Collecting these funds, however, has not been easy.
The country’s economic difficulties have caused food shortages and forced many people to sell their homes and live on the streets. Given these circumstances, many people are upset about having to give money to the government. Many are denouncing the move as just another ploy to reach into people’s pockets under the pretext of public policy, the reporting partner said.
“People have already broken their backs to support construction in Pyongyang and provide support to the Korean People’s Army, among other things. They are complaining bitterly about how the authorities are once again making excuses to steal their money while repeating day and night that this is all for the sake of the party’s child care policies. They criticize the government for going on and on about childcare when it’s all words and no action. People are complaining there’s nothing much left to go around and that the government should go over to Pyongsong Station and take a look at all of the homeless people overrunning the station instead.”
Translated by Rose Adams. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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