On February 24, the government selected Siheung, Gwangmyeong as the 6th new city in order to expand the supply of housing in the metropolitan area. It is the largest of the 3rd new towns to date, and will be built as a self-sufficient city that serves as a base for the development of the southwestern sub-axis adjacent to Seoul. The picture shows the whole area of Gwarim-dong, Siheung-si, Gyeonggi-do. yunhap news
Suspicion was raised that employees of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) had previously purchased about 7,000 pyeong (about 23,000 square meters) of land in the new city districts of Gwangmyeong and Siheung, aiming for a profit margin.
On the 2nd, after the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that Gwangmyeong and Siheung City were designated as the 3rd new town, LH employees in the area were reported to have purchased land for speculation. “As a result of checking the land ledger, etc., we confirmed the circumstances in which several LH employees shared shares of the land and purchased it.”
About 10 LH employees and their spouses bought about 7,000 pyeong of land for 10 billion won from April 2018 to June 2020. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced the region as a new city on the 24th of last month. It is estimated that only loans through financial institutions amount to 5.8 billion won, Minbyun said.
The problem is that there is a high possibility that something similar has happened in other new cities. Attorney Seong-min Seo said, “This wrong practice is not only considered as co-owners of the land, but also purchased the land in a similar period jointly with their own name or spouse and acquaintances. It is strongly assumed that there were many.”
To this end, Minbyun and the Participation Solidarity requested a thorough investigation. Lee Kang-hoon, an attorney of the Participation Solidarity, said, “If it is true that LH employees in a position where they can access a lot of information about the public housing project have dumped land on the planned site of the new city, they are imprisoned for up to 7 years or fined up to 70 million won under the Anti-Corruption Act. It is a crime of use of confidentiality,” he said. He emphasized that “the auditors should conduct a thorough audit through a thorough inspection of their pre-speculation activities, as well as transparently disclose the cause and the whole story of the lack of management and supervision at the level of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and LH.”
Reporter Lee Ga-young [email protected]
