Goyang City Requests Police Investigation into 'Suspected Undervalued Sale of Kintex Site' Involving Related Officials

Three Public Officials Accused of Breach of Duty

Goyang City Hall

[Asia Economy Reporter La Young-chul] Goyang City in Gyeonggi Province announced on the 15th that it has completed an audit related to the "'special favor' suspicion of selling the Kintex C2 site (office facility land) at a low price" and referred three related public officials to the Northern Gyeonggi Police Agency for investigation on charges including breach of duty.

In the audit results of the specific audit conducted by Goyang City regarding the sale of Kintex public property, the city judged that there were inappropriate or negligent decisions in the early stages of the sale, including ▲review of the necessity of land sale ▲district unit plan changes not aligned with the purpose ▲drafting and reviewing the bid announcement for the C2 site (Kintex Phase 1) ▲validity review of the sale price for the C2 site (Kintex Phase 1) ▲failure to establish a public property management plan for the C1-1 and C1-2 sites (Kintex Phase 2).

The city also stated that the audit of the bidding and contract stages, including ▲changes in contract conditions for the C2 site (Kintex Phase 1) ▲agreement on the return of the bid deposit for the C2 site (Kintex Phase 1) ▲determination of the expected price for the C1-1 and C1-2 sites (Kintex Phase 2) excluding factors of land price increase ▲changes in contract conditions for the C1-1 and C1-2 sites (Kintex Phase 2), was also inappropriate.

Regarding the delay in disclosing the audit results, the city explained, "Since the impact of the audit results was significant, we requested legal advice from 10 legal counsel firms of Goyang City to conduct a more rigorous legal review at the final stage."

It added, "The advisory opinions were returned with three firms stating that it is possible to apply charges of breach of duty and refer for investigation, and seven firms stating it is not possible."

However, the city made the final decision to refer three public officials suspected of breach of duty for investigation despite the legal advisory results, in order to clearly resolve the suspicion of special favor.

Regarding the report on the suspicion of 'offering bribes to suppress the report,' the city has attached the materials investigated so far and referred the case to the Goyang Police Station for investigation on the 7th.

A city official said, "We hope that judicial authorities will thoroughly investigate private companies and related parties that could not be investigated at the city level and clarify the matter clearly."

Meanwhile, the city sold the Kintex office facility land C2 site (42,718㎡) to First E Development in December 2012 during the tenure of former Mayor Choi Sung.

The city originally established a district unit plan to designate the Kintex area in Daehwa-dong, Ilsanseo-gu as a special planning zone to create support and activation sites for the MICE industry, systematically arranging the international exhibition center and its supporting facilities for development.

However, instead of office-use supporting facilities, the district unit plan was changed to effectively expand residential use, and while selling the land, the sale price was set excessively lower than the nearby Hallyu World site, continuously raising suspicions of selling at a low price.

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