"Unable to Filter 'Cha-myeong Speculation'... Hong Nam-ki Acknowledges Limitations, Calls for Investigation Efforts"

7th Fair Society Anti-Corruption Policy Council Briefing

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki is briefing on the results of the Anti-Corruption Policy Council at the government Seoul office briefing room on the 29th. From the second left, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Kim Hyun-soo, Chairperson of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission Jeon Hyun-hee, Deputy Prime Minister Hong, and Chairman of the Financial Services Commission Eun Sung-soo are attending. 2021.3.29 [Photo by Yonhap News]

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Son Sun-hee] Although the government announced that it would promote the 'Public Officials Property Registration System' in response to the land speculation scandal involving employees of Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), there are criticisms that the system lacks effectiveness as there is no way to filter out 'nominee transaction speculation' through relatives or third-party acquaintances.

On the afternoon of the 29th, Hong Nam-ki, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance, said in a briefing at the Government Complex Seoul following the 7th Fair Society Anti-Corruption Policy Council chaired by President Moon Jae-in, in response to related questions, "Until the (financial information inquiry) system is established, only real estate such as houses and land will be reported as property, so I think there will be some limitations." He added, "Nominee transactions fall under the investigative dimension."

The scope of public officials subject to property disclosure conducted by the Government Public Officials Ethics Committee includes political appointees under the executive branch, senior public officials (Grade A), presidents of national universities, heads of public-related organizations, heads of metropolitan and basic local governments, metropolitan council members, and superintendents of education in cities and provinces. The government plans to operate a property registration system independently under the supervision of the audit departments of each affiliated institution for other public officials who were not previously subject to reporting, taking this LH scandal as an opportunity.

This year, as the first phase, only real estate such as land and houses will be registered, and financial assets will be promoted in the second phase after the financial information inquiry system is established.

However, there are limitations due to each institution operating independently, and the method cannot filter out nominee transaction speculation through relatives at all.

Regarding this, Deputy Prime Minister Hong explained, "Under the responsibility of the heads of affiliated institutions, reporting only real estate as property does not impose a significant administrative burden, so this decision was made," adding, "To report all property including financial information, financial information from each financial institution must be obtained, and it takes time to build that system."

He continued, "From the government's perspective, as each affiliated institution independently registers property, the financial information inquiry system should be built quickly so that property reporting on financial assets can be fully implemented, enabling the detection of nominee transactions," and said, "Until then, nominee accounts are not identified through property reporting, so more active efforts are needed in the criminal or investigative dimension." This essentially acknowledges that the independent real estate property registration system cannot reveal nominee transactions.

However, Deputy Prime Minister Hong said, "In the future, investigations on speculation will be conducted not only on an individual basis but also focusing on land," adding, "By securing speculators based on land, speculators involved in nominee transactions can be more easily detected." He also added, "Since land-focused investigations cannot cover the entire country, planned investigations will be conducted focusing on highly suspicious cases."

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