Can We Trust the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's Claim of 'Zero Speculation' Based on 'Self-Investigation' Before New Residential Site Designation?

Government Announces New Housing Sites in Uiwang, Gunpo, Ansan, etc.
Pre-Announcement Self-Investigation on Speculation by Ministry of Land and LH
No Speculation Found, but "Hard to Believe" Criticism Arises
No Investigation into Nominee Transactions... Half-Hearted Effort

Yoon Sung-won, the 1st Vice Minister of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, is stepping onto the podium on the morning of the 30th at the Government Complex Sejong in Sejong City to announce the 3rd New Public Land Development Plan to expand housing supply in metropolitan areas.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

Although the government announced a new housing site for 140,000 households and stated that there are "no allegations of public officials' speculation," concerns have been raised that it is difficult to trust the investigation since it was conducted as a 'self-investigation.' In particular, there are voices suggesting that the exclusion of nominee transactions through relatives of public officials, which is the core of the speculation allegations, from the investigation from the beginning effectively granted them a clean slate.

According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MOLIT) and others on the 31st, before the announcement of the third new public housing site confirmed the day before, investigations into speculation allegations against current employees of MOLIT, Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), Gyeonggi Housing and Urban Corporation (GH), and Incheon Urban Corporation (iH) were conducted by each respective institution. MOLIT employees were investigated by the MOLIT Audit Office, LH employees by the LH Audit Office, and GH and iH also conducted 'self-investigations' of their own employees regarding speculation allegations on new housing sites.

When allegations of land speculation by LH executives and employees surfaced in the Gwangmyeong-Siheung district in March this year, a government joint investigation team led by the Prime Minister's Office investigated speculation allegations against MOLIT and LH employees, while the MOLIT Audit Office only performed support tasks such as obtaining consent forms. This was a measure to avoid controversies over leniency that could arise if employees' speculation allegations were investigated internally.

However, in the case of the third new housing sites in Uiwang, Gunpo, and Ansan, the investigation was conducted as a self-investigation from the start. MOLIT investigated 4,500 MOLIT employees, 9,800 LH employees, 790 GH employees, and 450 iH employees to verify speculation such as compensation speculation using undisclosed information, but announced that no cases with speculation likelihood were found.

Because of this, many in the industry point out that it is difficult to trust the government's investigation results. Regarding this, a MOLIT official said, "Since it was a new housing site announcement on the scale of a new city, confidentiality was necessary, so there was an unavoidable aspect," adding, "In the case of speculation, evidence does not disappear, so we first confirmed through self-investigation that employees had no allegations, and if other suspicions are found later, we plan to conduct additional investigations." This implies that the possibility of a flawed investigation is not ruled out.

In particular, since this investigation into public officials' speculation allegations was conducted only on current public officials such as MOLIT employees, there are many criticisms that it is a 'half-measure.' Nominee transactions were not even checked, and members of the National Assembly, local council members, and local government officials were all excluded from the investigation. Since public officials are highly likely to use nominees when speculating using undisclosed internal information to avoid future problems, no verification was conducted.

It is known that MOLIT has no plans to separately investigate the possibility of nominee transactions involving employees' relatives in the future. The policy is to look into the possibility of nominee transactions only if suspicions are confirmed through actual transaction investigations selectively conducted on suspected illegal cases. However, in this case, it is pointed out that it is difficult to verify the core issue of whether undisclosed internal information was used, revealing clear limitations. A MOLIT official said, "We receive many tips and whistleblowing reports directly or indirectly related to MOLIT," adding, "Although the likelihood of speculation is not high, we will continue to monitor the situation."

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