Did you leave the fish to the cat… LH employees suspicion of land speculation

Ten employees of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) were allegedly excluded from work as suspicions were raised that they had purchased land for speculation in the region before designation as a new city in Gwangmyeong and Siheung, Gyeonggi Province.

The suspicion that the employees of LH, a public institution in charge of securing new housing sites and compensating for compensation, conspired and started speculation, pours out a stinging glance, saying, “I left the fish to the cat”.

While the Prime Minister even ordered a thorough investigation, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport immediately initiated a thorough investigation into the Gwangmyeong Siheung District, raising the possibility of further revealing the speculation situation.

Attorneys’ Association for Participation Solidarity and Democratic Society (Minbyun) held a press conference on the 2nd, and 10 LH staff members announced 23,000 square meters (about 7,000 pyeong) of land in Gwangmyeong and Siheung New Towns, which were announced as new public housing sites last month. It raised suspicion that it was purchased before designation.

Participation Solidarity and Minbyun analyzed the land ledger in the region after receiving a report, and found that 14 LH employees in the metropolitan area and their spouses and families all purchased 10 parcels for about 10 billion won from April 2018 to June 2020. Announced that it was identified.

Immediately after the announcement, LH said that 12 out of 14 employees were identified as current employees and 2 were former employees, and that 12 of them were immediately excluded from work.

Most of the former and current employees who are suspected of speculation are known to belong to LH’s Seoul and Gyeonggi regional headquarters. It is reported that some of them belong to the department in charge of land compensation for new housing sites.

The land they purchased is farmland distributed around the new city-designated areas, and when they enter development, they can receive compensation for accommodation or compensation for land (a method of paying land instead of cash).

Of the 10 billion won in land purchase, it is estimated that about 5.8 billion won was raised through loans to financial institutions.

In many circumstances, Minbyun et al. argue that there is a suspicion that LH employees, who are good at development information and land compensation business, have borrowed a considerable amount from financial institutions and purchased a pile of land in areas with high potential for new city development for speculation purposes.

“If you look at LH’s internal compensation regulations, the shareholders who have 1,000 square meters are subject to the large-soil compensation standard. Some parcels were’splintered’ as soon as they died, but (equity holders) were compensated by giving them more than 1,000 square meters. “There are circumstances in which it seems to have known the way and acted.”

In the farmland they bought, the situation was also spotted when a large-scale planting of trees took place immediately after the designation of a new city. This is a part that is suspected of being carefully planned to increase the amount of compensation.

Participation Solidarity · Minbyun emphasized that the suspicion raised on this day could be the’tip of the iceberg’.

If the suspicion of investigating some randomly selected parcels after receiving a report is this much, he said that there is a possibility that there is a possibility of a larger scale of speculation and moral hazard, and that he will request a public interest audit to the auditor.

Some argue that the subject of all speculation allegations should not be limited to Gwangmyeong and Siheung new cities, but should be expanded to all six and third new cities.

In addition, a responsibility to the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Byun Chang-heum has also been raised.

The time when Minister Byun served as president of LH (April 2019 to December 2020) overlapped with the period when alleged speculators purchased the land, and they were responsible for managing and supervising it.

The day before, when the news that Minister Byeon mentioned the allegations of speculation in advance by LH executives and employees at a New Year’s meeting with the heads of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Internet real estate cafés were criticized for the “fluid escape method”.

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