'Reuse of Past Inspection Photos in Bridge and Tunnel Safety Inspection Reports'... Gyeonggi-do Identifies 12 Cases

It has been confirmed through a Gyeonggi Province audit that safety inspection companies reused past inspection photos when preparing safety inspection reports for bridges, tunnels, and other structures within Gyeonggi Province.

It was revealed through a special audit in Gyeonggi Province that safety inspection companies specializing in safety diagnostics conducted inadequate safety inspections by reusing past inspection photos when preparing safety inspection reports for bridges and tunnels within the province.

The Office of the Auditor of Gyeonggi Province announced on the 28th that, as a result of a special audit on safety management practices to prevent major disasters conducted from June 21 to July 28 across 31 cities and counties in the province, they detected such facts and requested fines for 12 companies.

The comprehensive inspection revealed that 12 safety inspection companies, including Company A responsible for safety inspections of bridges and tunnels in Yangju City, prepared periodic safety inspection reports for 228 facilities while reusing 623 photos from past reports, thereby inadequately preparing the safety inspection reports.

In particular, it was confirmed that Company A reused photos from safety inspection reports prepared by another company in the first half of 2020 for 46 out of 91 bridges and tunnels subject to safety inspection in the second half of 2020.

Accordingly, Gyeonggi Province decided to request fines and other penalties for the 12 companies that conducted inadequate safety inspections in accordance with the Facility Safety Act. Furthermore, the province plans to regularly inspect the safety inspection status of public facilities such as bridges and tunnels to fundamentally prevent inadequate inspection practices such as reusing exterior inspection photos.

Additionally, as a result of inspecting safety management practices at public construction sites, three institutions including Yongin City were found to neglect safety management obligations by failing to receive safety management plans after commencement or conduct safety inspections during the installation of temporary structures, and were thus required to make improvements.

Gyeonggi Province also inspected the status of dedicated organizations for major disaster response and entrusted management of environmental infrastructure facilities across 31 cities and counties. Fifteen institutions, including Yangju City, were found to operate dedicated organizations for major disaster response only formally, while sixteen institutions, including Namyangju City, neglected major industrial disaster prevention measures by failing to establish safety assurance evaluation criteria to protect workers at entrusted sites, and were required to improve.

Choi Eun-soon, Auditor of Gyeonggi Province, stated, "This special audit provided an opportunity to identify and improve blind spots in safety management across various sectors in advance," adding, "We will continue to conduct special audits on safety management practices to prevent major disasters and do our best to secure the safety rights of residents."

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