It was revealed in an audit by the Board of Audit and Inspection that Chae Hee-bong, former president of Korea Gas Corporation, who served as secretary for industrial policy at the Blue House under the Moon Jae-in administration, stayed in a hotel suite worth 2.6 million won per night with gas corporation money during an overseas business trip. This amount is 2.7 times the upper limit of 950,000 won for overseas accommodation expenses for ministerial-level government officials. In addition, the Board of Audit and Inspection discovered a number of illegal and negligent actors in its audits of major public corporations and related ministries, including public officials who paid tens of millions of won with corporate credit cards of public corporations and public institutions that distributed thousands of laptop PCs to their employees .
According to the audit report on ‘Public Institutions’ Financial Soundness and Management Status’ released by the Board of Audit and Inspection on the 10th, Korea Gas Corporation has a ‘travel expenses regulation’ that provides for unlimited lodging expenses for executives and high-ranking executives when they travel abroad. Under the pretext of this, KOGAS executives and high-ranking executives went on 53 overseas business trips from 2019 to July of last year and received 76.23 million won more than the amount that civil servants of similar positions could receive for travel expenses. Former CEO Chae went on a 3-night, 5-day business trip to London, England in April last year, and stayed at the 5-star hotel ‘Shangri-La The Shard’ for all 3 nights in a suite costing 2.6 million won per night. Including this, former President Chae stayed overseas for a total of 74 days and spent an average of 870,000 won per day on lodging. It is reported that former President Chae did not respond to the Board of Audit and Inspection’s request for an explanation for staying at a luxury hotel.
Last year, when former CEO Chae went on a luxury business trip, Korea Gas Corporation’s ‘accounts receivable’ amounted to 8.6 trillion won. Accounts receivable are the amount of natural gas import payment that KOGAS has not recovered by receiving fees, and corresponds to a general corporate loss. The Board of Audit and Inspection notified Korea Gas Corporation to revise its travel expenses regulations to prevent executives and employees from lavishly spending lodging expenses on overseas business trips.
A level 5 official at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy had employees dispatched from the Korea District Heating Corporation pay 38 million won for non-work-related expenses, such as meal expenses, on 897 occasions from 2019 to last year, using the corporation’s corporate card. This office worker had heating company employees act as drivers on his business trips or buy food and bring it to his house. There was even a case where an employee working in Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do had to come to Samcheok-si, Gangwon-do and pay for the meal instead. Manager Lee’s superior, a manager, was also caught paying 12 million won for department dinner expenses to heating construction employees. The Board of Audit and Inspection reported the officer in question to the prosecution and requested the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to fire the officer and suspend the manager.
Even though East-West Power offered to purchase the company house in Nam-gu, Ulsan, in which Korea Southern Power had a half stake with Korea East-West Power, for 4.5 billion won in 2014, Korea Southern Power declined the offer and sold it to its executives for 2.37 billion won. This executive created an ‘association’ with 12 current and former employees of Korea Southern Power Company and 3 members of the public, and had them each contribute money to raise the funds needed to purchase the company house. During this process, this executive also obtained internal information from the person in charge of selling the company home that there would be no competing bidders. This executive requested that East-West Power, which must continue to use the company residence, buy back the shares in Korea Southern Power Company that it had purchased for about 10 billion won. When Korea Southern Power Company refused, in February 2021, it requested that the company house land be divided into shares and shared with Korea Southern Power Company. It was discovered that a lawsuit was filed and the lawsuit is continuing. The Board of Audit and Inspection requested the prosecution to investigate three employees of Korea Southern Power Company, including this executive. In addition, Ulsan City was notified to impose a fine on this executive메이저놀이터 in relation to the fact that he received the name in trust from members of the ‘union.’
An employee in charge of land compensation at Korea Water Resources Corporation found out that among the land the company had expropriated, there was land for which no application for compensation for farming losses had been filed, and at the end of 2016, he applied for compensation for loss for this land under his father’s name, receiving compensation of 81.21 million won. He was caught taking it. When the Board of Audit and Inspection audit began, this employee returned 103.6 million won, including 22.39 million won in legal interest, to the corporation.
The Korea Rural Community Corporation was criticized by the Board of Audit and Inspection for purchasing 5,690 laptops for 7.7 billion won and distributing them to all employees below level 3. The Korea Rural Community Corporation claimed that it provided laptops to ‘build a smart work environment’, but the Board of Audit and Inspection found that there was no special reason to provide laptops to all employees. Korea Land and Housing Corporation ( LH ) was criticized by the Board of Audit and Inspection for using 57 LH retirees as part-time instructors while operating an in-house university attended by only 12 employees .