Board of Audit and Inspection Decides to Accuse Game Commission... "Payment Made Despite Lack of Network Infrastructure"

The Audit Board's investigation confirmed the suspicions of 'network corruption' within the Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC). The Audit Board found that despite the service contract not being completed, the project was approved, causing the GRAC to incur damages exceeding 600 million KRW.

On the 29th, the Audit Board announced the results of the national audit regarding allegations of misconduct at the GRAC and demanded the suspension of Choi, the current GRAC Secretary-General involved in the network construction corruption. Additionally, the Audit Board instructed that the misconduct of Team Leader A, who was responsible for the network construction and left the GRAC in May last year, be reported to his current employer, the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation.

In October last year, Lee Sang-heon, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, filed a national audit request with the Audit Board, reporting misconduct in the 'Integrated Post-Management System for Self-Rated Games' initiated by the GRAC in 2017.

Lee's national audit request was triggered by the 'unfair rating controversy' that heated online communities in October last year. When the GRAC demanded certain mobile game operators, whose games were rated from 'All Ages' to '15+', to raise their usage ratings or modify content without disclosing the exact review procedures, users filed a large number of complaints against the GRAC.

During this process, the network corruption allegations, which had been reported once in the media in 2020, resurfaced, creating public demand for a reinvestigation. Despite commissioning a network construction project with a total budget of 3.88 billion KRW, the project was halted in an incomplete state, and the GRAC did not seek any compensation from the outsourced company that supplied the network. Consequently, Lee collected over 5,400 signatures from citizens and filed a national audit request with the Audit Board.

The Audit Board, upon commencing the audit, found that at the end of the first phase of the contract, the progress rate of the service was only between 42.2% and 49.9%. Out of 610 requirements, only 255 were implemented, yet the contract amount was paid in full without adjustment. The Audit Board determined that the GRAC suffered damages exceeding 666 million KRW during the service execution process.

Meanwhile, the day before the audit results were made public, Kim Gyu-cheol, Chairman of the GRAC, stated at the 2023 Game Policy Seminar (Forum), "These issues occurred during the tenures of previous GRAC chairpersons," and explained, "No illegal activities were found during my 1 year and 10 months in office." He also announced that he would reflect the audit findings and user feedback in organizational restructuring.

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