Changwon City: "Suspension and Standby Orders Follow Audit and Related Regulations"

Democratic Party City Council Members Criticize Personnel at Changwon Leisure Sports Park and Pureun City Project Office

Changwon Special City in Gyeongnam stated that the suspension of the chairman's duties at Changwon Sports Park and the reassignment of the head of the Pureun City Project Office to standby duty are measures taken in accordance with the audit results and relevant laws.

On November 17, Changwon City suspended the chairman's duties and requested an investigation from the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office.

From October 1 to November 8, a service audit was conducted on Chairman Lee Hoguk, revealing false statements in hiring documents at the time of appointment, plagiarism in the job performance plan, and maintaining a private company for profit purposes.

On the 7th, the city refuted claims by the Democratic Party Changwon City Council members that the suspension of Chairman Lee's duties was a retaliatory targeted audit by Mayor Hong Nampyo.

The Democratic Party city council members argued, "When we questioned the qualifications of then-candidate Chairman Lee during a city administration inquiry last December, the response was that there was no significant legal issue. Now raising these points as problems is sufficient to be seen as retaliation against Chairman Lee, who is known to have reported allegations related to the mayor and the deputy mayor being investigated for violations of the Political Funds Act."

The city stated, "A routine service audit was conducted on Chairman Lee, and during a re-examination of issues raised at the time of appointment, misconduct was identified, leading to these measures. According to the Local Public Enterprises Act, a chairman's duties can be suspended if unethical conduct is found to undermine the ethical management of the corporation."

Although suspicions were raised around October 2022 at the time of the chairman's appointment, the city explained that proper personnel verification was not conducted because the eligibility was judged solely based on the documents submitted by the candidate during the recruitment or appointment process, without intentional wrongdoing.

"These actions are simply a result of discovering false documents submitted at the time of appointment and other violations of related laws during the recent audit process," the city said, adding, "We will normalize the operation of Changwon Leisure Sports Park as soon as possible."

The Democratic Party of Korea's Changwon City Council members are criticizing the personnel actions taken by Changwon City regarding the chairman of Changwon Leisure Sports Park and the head of the Green City Project Office.
[Photo by Lee Seryeong]

The city also opposed the Democratic Party city council members' claim that placing the head of the Pureun City Project Office on standby duty until the December regular personnel reshuffle on December 4 was an unjust abuse of personnel authority.

The city explained, "At the regular briefing on November 29, the head of the Pureun City Project Office expressed personal opinions that differed from the city's position when reporters asked about allegations of preferential treatment exempting the purchase of public land in the special private development project for Sahwa and Daesang Parks, as revealed in the interim audit results."

The city firmly stated that the failure of the private park promoter to purchase public land within the park facilities, as pointed out in the audit, is a clear violation of the Park and Green Space Act and related laws, as well as the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's authoritative interpretation.

It was pointed out that during the negotiation process, neither the responsible public officials nor decision-makers had the discretion to exempt the purchase of public land, yet the head of the project office, who oversees the entire project, expressed incorrect opinions on the matter.

At the regular briefing, the head said, "If the public land had been purchased, it would have been difficult to conclude the agreement," and "The private operator's profit from Daesang Park is up to 63.1 billion KRW, while the cost of purchasing city-owned land is about 76.4 billion KRW. If such a demand had been made, the private operator would have no reason to sign an agreement with Changwon City, making the project impossible to proceed," which was understood as an answer contradicting the city's audit results.

The Democratic Party city council members said, "The head of the Pureun City Project Office is known as a person who works sincerely for Changwon City within the public service," and "Forcing an unjust personnel action to suppress a public official's conscience and conviction simply because they expressed opinions different from the audit results is unacceptable."

Changwon City said, "We judged that it was inappropriate for the head to perform duties this year while the project issues need to be corrected and normalized, so we reassigned him. We plan to assign an appropriate position in the regular personnel reshuffle to be held in a few weeks."

They added, "The purpose of the audit is to identify problems and their causes and correct them properly," and "We will carefully consider the difficulties faced by employees due to the audit."

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