SOC(Social Overhead Capital) 분야 정부사업은 정치적 영향력을 쉽게 받을 수 있고 생산 과정에서 다수의 공정에 많은 주체들이 참여하여 문제발생의 책임을 규명하기 어려워서 책무성(accountability) 측면에서 취약하다. 본 논문에서는 한국의 SOC 공공투자관리시스템(SOC Public Investment Management system)을 건설 주요 단계별 평가제도를 중심으로 재정 책무성 측면에서 평가하여 문제점을 진단하고 개선방안을 마련하였다. 예비타당성 제도(preliminary feasibility studies), 타당성재검토제도(re-assessment study of feasibility), SOC 사후 평가 제도(ex-post performance evaluation system for SOC Projects)를 재정책무성 관점에서 분석하고 정책 대안을 제시하는데 중점을 두었다. 특히 검토과정에서 주요 이슈로 부각된 공기연장 문제와 부실하게 운영되고 있는 사후평가 제도의 한계를 밝히고 구체적인 개선 방안을 제시하였다.

Government projects in the field of social overhead capital (SOC) are vulnerable to weak fiscal accountability. This is because they tend to be subject to political influence and the construction of large scale infrastructure involves many stakeholders at various production steps, making it difficult who is responsible if a project goes wrong. In this paper, we evaluated the SOC public investment management system in Korea in terms of financial accountability, focusing on projects’ major evaluation systems in stages. In addition, problems in SOC public investment are identified to develop policy measures to improve public investment system. We assess the performance of preliminary feasibility studies, re-assessment study of feasibility, and ex-post performance evaluation system for SOC Projects in terms of fiscal accountability and propose policy alternatives. In particular, we identified the problems of time overrun in construction projects and the limitation of the post evaluation system which is a major issue in the project review process, and suggest policy measures to improve SOC public investment management.