"Government Funds Are Not Blind Money"…175 Billion Won Recovered from False and Excessive Claims

Kwonikwi Imposes 3 Billion KRW Penalty... Largest Recovery in Social Welfare Sector

Jeon Hyun-hee, Chairperson of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission. (Image source=Yonhap News)

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission announced on the 2nd that it recovered 17.5 billion KRW from those who fraudulently claimed public financial payments at central and local administrative agencies and local education offices in the first half of the year, and imposed penalty surcharges amounting to 2.97 billion KRW.

The Commission conducted a compliance investigation on the implementation of the 'Public Finance Recovery Act' at 308 institutions from August 3 to September 29 and then announced the results. According to the law, which has been in effect since January 1 of last year, if subsidies, compensations, grants, and other payments are fraudulently received, the amount must be recovered and an additional penalty surcharge up to five times the amount can be imposed. The investigation revealed that the total amount recovered from administrative agencies in the first half of the year was 17.5 billion KRW, penalty surcharges imposed were 2.97 billion KRW, and payment suspensions amounted to 1.82 billion KRW.

Breaking down the amounts recovered by type of fraud, false claims accounted for 6.48 billion KRW, excessive claims for 1.93 billion KRW, and overpayments for 8.72 billion KRW. By law, the largest recovery amounts were related to social welfare laws, including the Youth Employment Act at 4.316 billion KRW, the Basic Livelihood Security Act at 4.116 billion KRW, and the Employment Insurance Act at 3.076 billion KRW.

There were 114 suspected cases (amounting to 462 million KRW) where penalty surcharges should have been imposed separately from recovery measures for false or excessive claims but were not. Major cases included ▲using subsidies received from being selected for startup support projects for other purposes, and ▲inflating fuel subsidy claims by paying more than the actual fuel purchased. These cases were found to have only recovery measures applied without penalty surcharges.

Based on the investigation results, the Commission plans to ▲conduct additional inspections on the 114 suspected cases for penalty surcharges and impose them if there is legal basis, ▲carry out special inspections on the record management of recovery and penalty surcharge imposition by administrative agencies in the first half of next year, and ▲reflect record management obligations in accounting regulations of public-related organizations to implement additional measures such as recovery actions. Alongside this, an in-depth investigation on recovery status by institution, law, and detailed project will be conducted. The Commission aims to more precisely identify national financial leakages, inspect vulnerable sectors and institutions, and discover improvement tasks.

Vice Chairman and Secretary-General An Seongwook of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission said, "Just as water pipes left unattended and unchecked for a long time will leak, public finances can be wasted if monitoring and management are neglected." He added, "We will establish a more meticulous and precise public finance leakage monitoring system to ensure that cases of waste of taxpayers' money do not occur."

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