Members of the Seongnam Residents’ Solidarity hold a press conference at the fountain plaza in front of the Blue House in Jongno-gu, Seoul on the 24th and urge the dismantling of LH and the establishment of the Housing Office in relation to the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) speculation case. News 1
The government belatedly pulled a knife as the suspicion of land speculation in the new city of Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) employees expanded to the entire public service community, including Blue House employees, lawmakers, and public officials. Separately from the National Investigation Headquarters, a’Public Officials Property Intensive Examination Group’ was set up to examine whether there were any illegal cases in the process of building the property of public officials. This is a countermeasure that came out when the credibility and transparency, which are the core of the public official society, were on the verge of collapse due to the suspicion of speculation. However, it is pointed out that the result of the savage bathing is repeated due to the poor’self-investigation’ by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, which is the subject of the investigation.
On the 25th, the Government Officials Ethics Committee announced that it has decided to immediately set up and operate an intensive public officials property examination team to verify the property formation process of 1,885 high-ranking public officials whose assets were disclosed.
Hwang Seo-jong, head of the HR Innovation Department, said, “As the person in charge of establishing public official ethics, I am very sorry for the recent suspicion of real estate speculation by some public officials. After forming an intensive examination team as an institution, we plan to promptly review the property formation process of public officials in real estate-related institutions by the end of June.” The rest of the public and non-disclosures of the property decided to look after that. The real estate-related agencies that the intensive review team will look at first are the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, LH, local governments, and local government-affiliated development projects.
The problem is that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, which is the subject of the investigation, participates in the intensive examination group as the subject of the investigation. It means that the results of the government joint investigation team that clearly revealed the limitations of’self-investigation’ may be repeated. Earlier, on the 11th, a joint investigation team, including the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said that it found 20 suspects of speculation by investigating the land transaction of 10,4319 employees of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
An official from the HR ministry said, “We considered excluding the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport because there was a concern for self-investigation, but the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport implemented the real estate system and included it inevitably because of its expertise.”
The intensive screening team will first select suspected abnormal transactions among land and building owners and new land traders in the urban development area, and then confirm the process of property formation, such as acquisition date, acquisition process, and income source. Even cases suspected of gaining property gains from information obtained on the job are included in the investigation.
Deputy Director Hwang said, “If any suspected violation is discovered, such as using information learned during the intensive examination process, we will immediately exclude the job and request an investigation to the investigating agency.” I will take strong measures,” he stressed.
Byun Tae-seop reporter [email protected]
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