Moon Jae-in Administration Recovers 30.8 Billion KRW for Illegal Solar Power and Electricity Fund Violations

308.6 Billion Recovered, Accounting for 45.4% of 68 Billion
375 Additional Investigations Requested by the Supreme Prosecutors' Office... Total Exceeds 900

As the government proceeds with the recovery of 68 billion KRW in improperly disbursed funds from the “Electric Power Industry Infrastructure Fund (Electric Power Fund)” during the Moon Jae-in administration, 30.86 billion KRW, accounting for 45.4% of the total, has been recovered. Previously, the government uncovered numerous cases of illegalities, evasion, and fraudulent claims involving the Electric Power Fund, which was supposed to be used for supporting and distributing renewable energy such as solar power, and initiated the recovery process.

The Electric Power Fund is money collected by deducting 3.7% from the electricity bills paid by the public and used to support various projects including renewable energy. The Yoon Suk-yeol administration announced in September last year that there were “corruption” issues in the Moon Jae-in administration’s solar energy distribution and expansion projects and declared its intention to recover the improperly allocated funds.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination announced on the 30th that as a result of recovery efforts from the 18th of last month to the 28th of this month, 45.4% of the specified recovery amount identified during the first inspection (April last year) and the second inspection (June) has been recovered. The specified recovery amount is 68 billion KRW. During the first inspection, 27.68 billion KRW and during the second inspection, 40.36 billion KRW were identified as amounts to be recovered. The recovery amounts by sector are ▲support projects for areas surrounding power plants 8.2 billion KRW, ▲financial support projects 1.75 billion KRW, ▲technology development (R&D) 14.53 billion KRW, and ▲others 6.38 billion KRW.

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For example, it was discovered that financial institutions have retained 1.75 billion KRW (across 17 cases) of funds that were loaned at low interest rates for renewable energy production costs but were not withdrawn by the borrowers. The government’s joint recovery task force recovered the full amount of these unreturned funds from the financial institutions through the Korea Energy Agency in February.

Among the unexecuted amounts of 28.21 billion KRW in the eco-friendly microgrid construction project, the entire balance of 6.36 billion KRW that was carried over without approval was also fully recovered. During inspections related to research and development projects (R&D), uncollected funds amounting to 13.3 billion KRW were identified due to failure to submit project expense reports after project completion (20 cases), failure to conduct settlements (39 cases), and failure to return settlement funds (50 cases). Of this, 11.63 billion KRW was recovered through the Korea Energy Technology Evaluation Institute.

The government’s Anti-Corruption Promotion Team additionally requested an investigation by the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on the 29th for 1,937 cases involving 375 individuals who received loans by issuing inflated tax invoices and then reissued reduced tax invoices. As a result, the total number of cases referred for investigation following the first and second inspections of the Electric Power Industry Infrastructure Fund projects has reached 3,828 cases involving 901 individuals. A representative from the Office for Government Policy Coordination stated, “To eradicate the illegal and improper cases detected this time, we plan to thoroughly recover subsidies and improve systems to prevent recurrence, thereby fostering a sound development environment in the power industry.”

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