[Asia Economy (Suwon) = Reporter Lee Young-gyu] It has been revealed that the 'haphazard management' of public institutions under Gyeonggi Province is repeated every year.

On the 25th, Gyeonggi Province announced that through audits of overall operations including personnel, accounting, contracts, and institutional management of four public institutions?Gyeonggi Housing and Urban Corporation (GH), Gyeonggi Welfare Foundation, Gyeonggi Institute of Economic Science and Technology, and Kintex?a total of 65 cases of improper conduct were detected and 12 people were disciplined.

Among the major cases detected this time, the Gyeonggi Welfare Foundation was found to have paid performance bonuses based on the proportion of the working period, even though there was no regulation to pay performance bonuses according to the length of service.

Additionally, it was found that the foundation overpaid performance bonuses amounting to 125 million KRW over four years from 2016 to 2019 by applying the payment standard of the 'Guidelines for Handling Local Government Officials' Salaries' instead of applying the foundation’s regulations to office workers.

Kintex was found to have delayed administrative and disciplinary actions for more than four months without any particular reason, despite being requested to take six administrative actions including improper execution of business promotion expenses and nine personnel actions following a special investigation by Gyeonggi Province from August to October 2018.

Gyeonggi Housing and Urban Corporation entered into subcontract contracts for scaffolding installation and dismantling work with unregistered companies that were not registered as construction companies, but it was confirmed that no supplementary or corrective measures were taken regarding this.

Last year, the province also detected a total of 65 cases of improper conduct in comprehensive audits of five public institutions: Pyeongtaek Port Corporation, Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation, Gyeonggi Youth Training Center, Gyeonggi Content Agency, and Gyeonggi Daejin Technopark.

At Pyeongtaek Port Corporation, it was confirmed that although 421 million KRW in revenue was generated from port hinterland complex management fees during the audit, the business department did not issue tax invoices, and the management department also failed to pay VAT, resulting in a penalty tax of 9.74 million KRW.

Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation was found to have contracted with Company A after only an internal advisory meeting, despite the requirement for external committee evaluation during the selection process of service providers.

Gyeonggi Content Agency was caught during the audit for having the contracted company assign unqualified personnel to carry out construction and for construction that differed from the original design.

The province took administrative actions on the 65 cases detected at that time, including minor disciplinary actions (3 cases), corrections (25 cases), cautions (34 cases), improvements (1 case), and recommendations (1 case), and recovered 59.7 million KRW. Additionally, one company that received payment through improper means was reported to the prosecution.

A provincial official stated, "Although public institutions in the province are making many efforts, it has been found that transparency and internal control are still insufficient due to organizational expansion. We will strive to realize fair public institution management by shortening the audit cycle of public institutions from three years to two years, actively utilizing 16 specialized citizen auditors, and establishing a continuous monitoring system for public institutions."

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