Yoon on Solar Power Project Corruption: "Public Taxes Used by Interest Cartels... It's Regrettable"

President Yoon: "Legal Violations Will Be Handled Through the Normal Judicial System"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Ki-min Lee] President Yoon Suk-yeol expressed "deep regret" on the 15th over the discovery of corruption involving approximately 260 billion KRW in the solar power projects conducted during the Moon Jae-in administration.

On the morning of the same day, as President Yoon arrived at the Yongsan Presidential Office building, reporters mentioned that "it was uncovered that taxes were abnormally used in solar power projects during the previous government." He responded, "It is deplorable that the people's hard-earned tax money, which should be used for welfare and support for those in need, was instead used for corrupt cartel interests."

President Yoon further emphasized, "Any violations of the law will be dealt with through the proper judicial system." However, he did not comment on the need for investigations into other national projects.

The Government Coordination Office's 'Joint Government Anti-Corruption Promotion Team' conducted a sample inspection from September last year until last month on the operation of the Power Industry Infrastructure Fund projects involving the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and 12 out of 226 local governments nationwide.

The project budget in question amounts to 2.1 trillion KRW, including a full investigation of the solar power financial support projects carried out by the Korea Energy Agency over three years (2019?2021), out of a total of 12 trillion KRW.

On the 13th, it was announced that 2,267 cases of illegal and improper activities were uncovered. The total amount of funds improperly loaned or disbursed in these cases is approximately 261.6 billion KRW.

Since such widespread corruption and deficiencies were found in the sample inspection of the 12 local governments, the government plans to expand the investigation to all 226 local governments nationwide.

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