Park Deok-heum Completely Denies Favoritism Allegations in Contract Awards... "Political Attack to Distract"

“Ruling Party: If baseless speculation is true... Admitting the collapse of South Korea's bidding system”

Park Deok-heum, a member of the People Power Party, is holding a press conference on the 21st at the National Assembly to explain allegations of preferential treatment in securing construction contracts from supervised institutions. Park is accused of winning construction contracts worth several hundred billion won from supervised institutions through five family-owned construction companies while serving on the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee since 2012. In particular, during the 2015 Seoul City audit, he directly requested Seoul City to adopt construction methods favorable to his family companies. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] On the 21st, Park Deok-heum, a member of the People Power Party and a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, expressed deep regret over allegations that he secured large-scale construction projects from supervised institutions through a family-owned construction company, stating, “I cannot shake the thought that this is a political attack trying to divert attention from recent ruling party issues.”

At a press conference held at the National Assembly that day, Park said, “The ruling party is making baseless claims that construction projects increased because I said a word during the national audit, because I was assigned to the related standing committee, and because I was appointed as a secretary.”

Park emphasized, “If the ruling party’s baseless claims are true, it means the ruling party itself admits that South Korea’s bidding system has collapsed and sends a message to the public that it is acceptable to distrust the entire current government organization. If the ruling party’s claim that someone can receive preferential treatment or pressure to win bids in the open competitive electronic bidding system is possible, then the current procurement system must be changed.”

Park stated, “After directly confirming with the Prosecutor’s Office, I verified that I am not a party to any petition case nor have I been involved in any criminal complaint or accusation,” adding, “If there were criminal charges, it is unthinkable that the prosecution under the Moon Jae-in administration would not have proceeded with a petition case against an opposition party lawmaker.”

Regarding allegations of breach of trust related to the golf course business, Park said, “These are baseless suspicions from Mr. K, who served as president of the Central Association of Specialized Construction,” and added, “Within 2 to 3 days, I will file a defamation lawsuit along with a claim for damages.”

On the suspicion of winning construction projects from Seoul City, Park explained, “At that time, the mayor of Seoul was former Mayor Park Won-soon, who is not someone who would overlook or order illegal acts for a lawmaker’s company, which the public knows well,” and added, “The lawmaker who raised the suspicion, Cheon Jun-ho, was the chief of staff, and Jin Sung-jun was the deputy mayor for political affairs of Seoul City.”

Park said, “If the claims are true, then lawmakers Cheon and Jin, who served as chief of staff and deputy mayor for political affairs in Seoul City, cannot be free from responsibility,” and stated, “Those who know better than anyone how fairly the Seoul City bidding process is conducted are raising suspicions without presenting concrete evidence of external pressure or requests, which makes their intentions suspicious.”

Park said, “The allegation that the amount of orders received by the family company greatly increased after my appointment as secretary of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee is completely untrue and contradicts objective statistics,” adding, “As a lawmaker, I have never exerted external pressure or made requests related to winning construction projects from government ministries or affiliated agencies.”

Park added, “The affiliated agencies and local governments that raised the suspicions are institutions where related companies have consistently won orders even before I became a lawmaker, and there were no new orders after I took office,” and explained, “According to the company’s confirmation, the amounts reported in the media were payments received after performing the construction work, and there was no case of receiving money as new technology usage fees without performing construction.”

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