Jung Mong-kyu, HDC Chairman: "Gwangju Hakdong Collapse Accident Caused by Poor Construction Management"

Attendance at the National Assembly Political Affairs Committee on the 16th

Jung Mong-kyu, Chairman of HDC Group, said regarding the collapse accident at the Gwangju Hakdong redevelopment site that occurred in June 2021, "I think the construction management was done poorly."

HDC Chairman Chung Mong-gyu is responding to a lawmaker's question at the Political Affairs Committee's audit held at the National Assembly on the 16th. Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

On the 16th, Chairman Jung appeared as a witness before the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee, and when Democratic Party lawmaker Cho Eung-cheon asked what he thought was the main cause of the Hakdong accident, he responded this way.

Regarding lawmaker Cho's criticism that the subcontracting issues at HDC Hyundai Development Company were particularly severe, Jung explained, "According to the Construction Management Act, it should not be done that way, and within the scope of what we know, we absolutely do not tolerate it."

He continued, "There should be no tertiary subcontracting, and most of it happens without our awareness," emphasizing again, and said, "We feel deeply sorry for the victims and those who were involved in the accident, and we will do our best to ensure that such incidents do not happen again."

Earlier, lawmaker Cho pointed out that at the Gwangju Hakdong site, the subcontracting chain went from 'subcontracting to secondary subcontracting to tertiary subcontracting,' and that the original rebar construction cost of 280,000 KRW per 3.3㎡ dropped to about 40,000 KRW, which is one-seventh, by the time it reached tertiary subcontracting.

Lawmaker Cho claimed that due to this subcontracting structure, "The company president, whose construction capability evaluation was 400 million KRW, with two employees and two construction records, was personally operating heavy machinery and demolishing when the accident occurred."

During the National Assembly audit on that day, suspicions were also raised that Chairman Jung deliberately avoided appearing as a witness.

Lawmaker Cho said, "After the Hakdong accident, we made every effort to summon him as a witness for the audit but failed. Last year, he did not attend either the Political Affairs Committee or the Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee audits because he was hosting the Asian Cup soccer tournament," and pointed out, "We failed to secure the hosting at the AFC General Assembly on October 17, and the Land Committee's final audit was on October 21, so he should have attended."

In response, Chairman Jung explained, "I have never intentionally tried to avoid attending the audit."

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