Bang Jeong-gyun: "Statistics Manipulation? Audit Board's Claim Is Not True"

Former Blue House Senior Secretary for Civil Society Bang Jeong-gyun MBC Interview
"Prior Reporting Possible During Economic Crisis, etc."

Former Blue House Senior Secretary for Civil Society Bang Jeong-gyun claimed that "the assertion by the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) that there was a violation of the Statistics Act is not true, as prior reporting was made in accordance with legal regulations," arguing that political motives were involved in the statistical manipulation allegations raised by the BAI.

Bang, who served as the chairman of the 'Forum Sa-ui-jae,' a gathering of senior officials during the Moon Jae-in administration, said on the 18th on MBC Radio's 'Kim Jong-bae's Focus' program, "The BAI claims that prior reporting was illegal under Article 27-2 of the Statistics Act, but according to Paragraph 4 of Article 27-2, prior reporting is allowed when related agencies need to respond urgently due to economic crises or market instability," explaining the situation.

Choi Dal-young, the First Deputy Auditor of the Board of Audit and Inspection, is making a presentation on the investigation request related to the "Preparation and Utilization Status of Major National Statistics" at the Board of Audit and Inspection's Third Annex in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on the 15th. Photo by Yonhap News

Regarding receiving weekly reports from the Korea Real Estate Board, he said, "During the Park Geun-hye administration, there was the 'Choi Kyung-hwan Nomics,' which relaxed all real estate regulations and even encouraged people to buy houses with borrowed money from the government. The consequences began to appear during our government, showing signs of a real estate surge," emphasizing, "From the (Moon Jae-in) government's perspective, there was a need for active measures related to this real estate surge, so they requested weekly reports from the Korea Real Estate Board. This was never done with any other ulterior motives."

Regarding the BAI's investigation results that the Korea Real Estate Board repeatedly requested to stop the weekly surveys but the Blue House repeatedly rejected these requests, he explained, "From the Korea Real Estate Board's standpoint, they naturally felt burdened by increasing the frequency from once a week to three times a week," adding, "Regardless of any ministry's requests, the government had to insist on continuing these reports from the perspective of managing the economy and the real estate market as a whole."

Bang also claimed, "The BAI is somewhat intentionally and maliciously accusing statistical manipulation by comparing KB Real Estate prices with those of the Korea Real Estate Board," stating that the BAI assumed KB Real Estate prices were correct and judged the lower statistics from the Korea Real Estate Board as manipulated.

On this matter, he said, "In the long term, the Korea Real Estate Board is evaluated as more accurate," and explained, "The difference arises because KB Real Estate prices are mainly input by brokers based on asking prices, while the Korea Real Estate Board's data is entered by informants. During periods of rapid apartment price increases, KB Real Estate prices tend to be much higher."

He continued, "However, during times like now when apartment prices are falling, the Korea Real Estate Board's prices tend to appear higher. This aspect was not considered," adding, "Especially in the BAI's materials, graphs were compared under the assumption that KB Real Estate prices are the accurate standard, but for a precise comparison, actual transaction prices should have been included. They did not include actual transaction prices. This shows intentionality."

Regarding the BAI's revelation that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport made specific demands to the Korea Real Estate Board such as 'If this continues, our line will all die,' 'Could you please make it negative for just one more week?' and 'Seoul must show at least 0.05%,' Bang said, "Based on our analysis of the data, we cannot examine Blue House involvement," but added, "We cannot specifically ascertain what happened between the Korea Real Estate Board and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport."

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