Built with Taxpayers' Money... Temple Stay Facility Closed for 5 Years

[Anchor]

Every year, tens of billions of won in state funds are poured into the "Temple Stay" program, ostensibly for preserving traditional culture and promoting culture and tourism. Buildings are constructed and renovated with the public's tax money, but upon visiting them, many are found closed or hard to even locate.

Reporter Bae Yeo-un has more.

[Reporter]

This is the exclusive Temple Stay building located in a corner of Silleuksa Temple in Yeoju, Gyeonggi Province.

The lattice doors are torn, and spiderwebs fill the eaves.

A foul odor pierces the nose inside the underground dining hall.

[Phew, the smell of mold...]

Although 750 million won combining national and local government funds was spent to build it, the Temple Stay has not been operated for five years since 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When asked why,

[Silleuksa Temple Official: There was a water leak, and the ceiling is caving in, so how could we serve meals there?]

However, the national funds received claiming they would fix the building amount to four times, totaling approximately 380 million won.

This means they closed down after failing to fix the leaks despite repairing it multiple times with state funds.

[Silleuksa Temple Official: Is it possible for us to take on debt to do repairs and run it?]

Designation can be revoked if a Temple Stay is not operated more than twice a month, but the competent authority stated it would take action only after five years have passed.

[Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Official: We think we need to finalize within this year whether to remove it from the registered operating temples or to have operations resumed.]

Places like this exist elsewhere, too.

At Banyasa Temple in Yeongdong, North Chungcheong Province, 500 million won in subsidies went into a Temple Stay project.

However, the newly built experience center is not visible within the temple grounds.

It appears only after crossing a stream and walking up a forest path for more than 10 minutes.

Without any signposts, it is not even easy to find.

The door is tightly locked, and looking through the window, construction protective materials remain unremoved just as they were left.

Checking the building ledger, it was completed in July of last year, but it is hard to find any traces of use.

The temple side stated that the space is used only when there are group participants.

[Banyasa Temple Official: I heard the frequency of use is not high. It's a building constructed with state funds, so not being able to utilize it is somewhat problematic. We are looking for ways to utilize it properly.]

Over the past 20 years, national funds poured into Temple Stays have exceeded 380 billion won.

For the past decade or so, it has been around 23 billion won annually, and this year it increased to 27 billion won.

(Camera Reporter: Seol Min-hwan, Video Editing: Park Na-young, Design: Seo Seung-hyun, VJ: Kim Jun-ho)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.