Minjoo: "Presidential Office's Suspicious Sole-Source Contract with New Company... Must Be Transparently Disclosed"

"Security Must Be the Most Thorough... Selecting Existing Vendors with Completed Security Reviews Is Common Sense"

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Je-hoon] On the 11th, the Democratic Party of Korea stated regarding the remodeling construction of the presidential office by the Presidential Secretariat, where a newly established company was awarded a private contract for the laminated glass work, "We hope the Presidential Secretariat transparently explains why only the newly established company in question was directly awarded the private contract and why urgency, rather than security, was the criterion for selecting the company."

Democratic Party spokesperson Jo Oh-seop commented in a written briefing on the same day, "The suspicious private contract allegations cannot be dismissed with the unclear explanations provided by the Presidential Secretariat."

Spokesperson Jo pointed out, "According to reports, most of the remodeling construction was ordered by the Security Office, but only the controversial laminated glass work was directly selected by the Secretariat, and the laminated glass construction entrusted to this company is said to be the largest transaction amount among the private contracts made by the Secretariat. This means the Secretariat directly contracted with a small-scale company whose construction capability has not been verified for the largest private contract."

He continued, "The Presidential Secretariat cited urgency as the reason for entrusting the work to the company in question, but it is unreasonable to prioritize urgency alone when carrying out construction in the president’s working office. As the facility requiring the strictest security in the Republic of Korea, thorough background checks and security reviews of the company should have been conducted beforehand. Therefore, it is common sense to select an existing company that has already passed security reviews rather than a newly established company."

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