Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister's Office: "Press Release Title on Moon Administration's Solar Power Status May Cause Misunderstanding"

NRA "Exaggerated Titles to Emphasize Solar Power Corruption"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Gong Byung-sun] Park Seong-geun, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, stated at the National Assembly audit that there was a misleading element in the title of the press release issued last month by the Office for Government Policy Coordination (OGPC) regarding the inspection of the Moon Jae-in administration's solar power projects.

At the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee audit of the OGPC and the Prime Minister's Secretariat on the 4th, opposition party lawmakers criticized that the OGPC tried to emphasize corruption in the solar power support projects promoted by the Moon administration by giving an exaggerated title to the press release.

On the 13th of last month, the OGPC's Anti-Corruption Promotion Team released a press release titled "Among 226 local governments nationwide, results of sample investigation of 12 locations... a total of 2,267 cases of illegal and improper execution detected, amounting to 261.6 billion KRW." From the title alone, it could be read that only the operation status of the Power Industry Infrastructure Fund projects in 12 out of 226 local governments was investigated, and over 260 billion KRW worth of irregularities were found. However, the body of the release included a full survey of 6,509 financial support projects for 12 local governments and solar power and other power generation facility installation financial support projects conducted by the Korea Energy Agency from 2019 to 2021.

Baek Hye-ryeon, chairperson of the Political Affairs Committee and member of the Democratic Party of Korea, criticized, calling it a typical "clickbait," saying, "It was a press release that seemed to single out only the Moon administration's solar power projects as problematic." Min Byung-duk, also from the Democratic Party, added, "It was a full survey, but the press release made it seem as if only 12 locations were sampled and about 2,000 cases were revealed."

Chief Secretary Park acknowledged, "I admit there was room for misunderstanding in the title," but responded, "If you look at the content, there is no such issue. I want to clarify that it was not intentionally made to create misunderstanding. It is clearly expressed in the latter part."

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