Won Hee-ryong "Is There a Basis for LH's Existence?"... 'Fury' Over Additional Discovery of Muryangpan Structure

On the 9th, Won Hee-ryong, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, instructed, regarding the late additional discovery of 10 apartment complexes with flat slab structures managed by Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), "To ensure the organization functions properly, fundamentally overhaul the system and, after assessing the situation, take personnel actions against those responsible according to the severity."

Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport Won Hee-ryong is visiting the public sale housing construction site at Hwaseong Bibong A3 Block in Gyeonggi on the 9th, receiving an explanation about the supervision. / Photo by Noh Kyung-jo

On the same day, Minister Won visited the public sale housing construction site at Hwaseong Bibong A3 Block in Gyeonggi Province and said before the supervision status inspection meeting, "I cannot help but say a word about LH’s function and attitude. Does LH, which cannot even grasp the status of the work board, have any grounds to exist?"

He continued, "Is it because they are entrenched in vested interests, or is it due to work habits?" and criticized, "Judging from their behavior yesterday and today, it seems LH even tried to lie."

LH announced that while conducting a detailed inspection of flat slab complexes that day, they additionally identified 10 complexes with flat slab structures applied in underground parking lots. By construction stage, there are ▲3 complexes not yet started ▲4 complexes under construction ▲3 complexes completed. The total scale is 7,167 households, including 1,871 sale housing units and 5,296 rental housing units.

These complexes were also excluded from safety inspections, raising criticism regarding LH’s intentionality and organizational system. This was revealed as LH conducted a full survey of flat slab structure complexes and is currently carrying out reinforcement work at 15 sites following the collapse accident of the underground parking lot in the public apartments of Incheon Geomdan New Town. The underground parking lot at the site Minister Won visited that day is also known to have a flat slab structure applied.

Minister Won emphasized, "Even if it was difficult to report additionally afterward, it is not a matter to be hushed up within the department or covered up within LH and then ask for understanding from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport." He added, "LH’s failure to thoroughly grasp this work in front of the safety of the people inevitably deserves public criticism."

He further stated, "People are not gods, so anyone can make mistakes, but organizations must have systems in place to conduct double or triple post-checks to overcome such mistakes." He added, "When the mistake is serious, responsibility must be held to prevent recurrence, shouldn’t it?"

Minister Won told LH President Lee Han-jun, "Take action at the risk of your position," and said, "Clarify why the information was not fully compiled by early May, why the self-correcting function did not operate immediately when the staff discovered it afterward, and strictly prevent any attempts to evade the situation by lying."

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