3,928 Public Officials Illegally Received Emergency Living Expenses... Daegu City Initiates Late Recovery Procedures

Excluding Public Officials, Private School Teachers, and Public Institution Employees from Receiving
Daegu City Fails to Filter Using Only Health Insurance Premium Support Criteria
Civic Group Demands "Mayor Kwon Apologize and Deputy Mayor of Econom

Daegu Mayor Kwon Young-jin delivering a greeting at the COVID-19 Emergency Economic Measures Meeting.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Park Dong-wook] Daegu City announced on the 9th that it will begin the recovery process for 3,928 individuals, including public officials, private school teachers, and public institution employees, who fraudulently received the region's emergency livelihood funds.

However, civic groups have criticized Daegu City's hasty administration revealed during the preliminary preparation process and have even raised questions about Mayor Kwon Young-jin's responsibility, suggesting that the controversy surrounding this issue is likely to continue for some time.

According to data released by Daegu City on the 9th, the recovery targets include 1,810 public officials, 1,577 private school teachers, 297 military personnel, and 244 public institution employees, totaling 3,928 people. These individuals received between 500,000 and 900,000 KRW each despite the fact that, due to privacy protections by the Government Employees Pension Service and the Private School Teachers' Pension Service, it was impossible to completely exclude ineligible recipients in advance. The total amount fraudulently received reaches 2.5 billion KRW.

Daegu City's emergency livelihood funds were distributed starting April 10 to approximately 459,000 households out of 586,000 households with median income at or below 100%, excluding about 127,000 households that had already received welfare benefits or special COVID-19 support, with a total disbursement of around 270 billion KRW.

The reason some public officials and private school teachers were able to fraudulently receive disaster relief funds during the distribution process was that Daegu City used only health insurance premiums, which indicate income level, as the eligibility criterion. To preemptively exclude public officials, private school teachers, and public institution employees, it was necessary to receive and verify lists from the Government Employees Pension Service and the Private School Teachers' Pension Service, but Daegu City explained that it could not obtain these lists due to privacy protection and other reasons.

Daegu City explained through a press release on the 9th, "At the media briefing on April 7, we announced in advance that it was difficult to conduct pre-verification for public officials and public institutions because we could not receive the lists due to privacy protection issues, and that we would verify the recipients and recover funds through post-verification."

In this regard, Daegu City plans to recover the funds by notifying the recipients subject to recovery, allowing them to submit opinions through preliminary procedures, and then issuing payment notices for the emergency livelihood funds. It is known that about 60% of the fraudulently received support funds have already been recovered.

Meanwhile, the Uri Welfare Citizens' Coalition issued a statement on the 8th saying, "Daegu City set exclusion criteria without any method for pre-verification and failed to find alternative methods, taking no punitive measures," and criticized, "Moreover, it is incomprehensible that they draw a line by stating there will be no investigation or disciplinary action against the public officials who fraudulently received funds."

Regarding this, Eun Jae-sik, Secretary General of the Uri Welfare Citizens' Coalition, demanded an official apology from Mayor Kwon, saying, "Mayor Kwon Young-jin should dismiss the Deputy Mayor of Economy who caused confusion in the emergency livelihood fund distribution and reorganize the economic department."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.