"Bribery, Overseas Travel During Sick Leave, and Unlawful Overtime Payments"...Massive Crackdown on Seoul City Officials

Board of Audit and Inspection Fully Discloses 'Seoul City Regular Audit'
Two Technical Officials Severely Disciplined for Bribery
198 Falsely Claimed Overtime Allowances

Two Seoul city officials who accepted money and gifts while on golf trips with job-related persons and had airline tickets and accommodations booked for them will face severe disciplinary actions. Additionally, a large number of Seoul city officials were caught taking overseas trips during sick leave or fraudulently receiving overtime pay more than three times.

On the 11th, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) disclosed the full report of the "Seoul Metropolitan Government Regular Audit" and announced that these findings were confirmed after conducting an inspection of organizational operations, including attendance management. This audit covered work performed by Seoul city from January 2019 to February 2023, including personnel and organizational management, major core project contract work, and checks on public service corruption such as collusion with job-related persons.

The audit revealed cases where two civil engineers in technical fields such as civil engineering repeatedly went on golf trips with job-related persons, accepting money and gifts or having airline tickets and accommodations booked for them. Nine facility workers, including mechanical staff, were found to have violated the Seoul city officials' code of conduct by receiving airline tickets and accommodation reservations from job-related persons and traveling abroad for golf trips.

The BAI requested severe disciplinary actions (demotion or suspension) for the two officials who accepted money and gifts from job-related persons and instructed appropriate measures, including notifying the courts to impose fines on both the officials who accepted the money and the company representatives who provided it.

Twenty-one Seoul city officials were also caught using sick leave for private overseas trips. Official A, affiliated with Seoul city, took six days of sick leave in October 2019 and traveled privately to Italy. It was confirmed that a total of 21 officials traveled abroad using sick leave or official leave without using annual leave or other types of leave from May 2019 to February of last year.

Applying for Overtime for Personal Exercise... Illegally Received About 25 Million Won

A large number of officials were also caught fraudulently receiving overtime pay. Official B, affiliated with Seoul city, was found to have falsely applied for overtime pay 15 times between January and March 2023 while going out for personal exercise. A total of 198 officials submitted false or fraudulent overtime pay claims from September 2022 to March of last year, illegally receiving about 25 million won.

Considering that only the six-month period of computerized attendance records was checked for 1,509 employees working in two buildings of the Seoul city hall where entry records are digitally recorded, it cannot be ruled out that the number of officials who fraudulently received overtime pay could be even higher if the inspection period is extended.

It was also confirmed that Seoul city violated relevant laws by excessively deciding the number of officials to be promoted. From December 2018 to February of last year, Seoul city violated the Local Public Officials Act by applying the promotion method for grade 5 officials to decide the number of grade 4 or higher promotions, approving 342 promotion candidates, which exceeded the actual vacancies (92) by more than 250.

Among the grade 4 or higher promotion candidates approved beyond the vacancy limit, 214 officials were assigned to act in their promotion positions for a minimum of 34 days and a maximum of 430 days (up to one year allowed by related regulations) without unavoidable reasons such as accidents. During this period, they were paid a total of over 1.2 billion won for position-related expenses and were treated the same as actual promotees.

A BAI official explained, "We requested strict attention to ensure that when deciding promotion candidates for grade 4 or higher, the number of candidates approved does not exceed actual vacancies in violation of related laws, and that acting appointments for grade 4 or higher positions are limited to cases with unavoidable reasons such as accidents."

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