Cabinet nominees face 'ethics test' over wealth

Ex-Naver CEO's W44b net worth at center of latest public scrutiny

Han Sung-sook, SMEs and startups minister nominee. Yonhap

Soon after Han Sung-sook, a famed business executive, was nominated by President Lee Jae Myung to be the minister of small and medium-sized enterprises and startups, her wealth quickly began making headlines.

According to financial disclosures Han submitted to the National Assembly, the nominee had declared around 18.1 billion won ($13.3 million) in assets.

But that failed to include her Naver stock options, an extensive portfolio of US stocks and crypto assets, or real estate holdings, according to undisclosed statements obtained by the opposition People Power Party.

More specifically, she owns several pieces of land and residential properties that are worth 13.3 billion won in total, the main opposition party found.

The combined assets of the former head of the country's largest search engine Naver, the opposition party pointed out, would amount to some 44 billion won.

If Han is confirmed as minister of SMEs and startups, a government branch that was upgraded to a ministry in 2017, she would become the richest minister to serve in that position and the richest minister in any Cabinet in over 25 years.

How a nominee vying for a Cabinet position accrued their wealth has long been a point of public scrutiny in Korea.

Under former President Moon Jae-in, also of the Democratic Party of Korea, public officials owning more than a single home were frowned upon.

The Moon administration put at its center the principle that officials should not own two or more homes, in a gesture aimed at placating public discontent over skyrocketing housing prices.

But according to a Government Ethics Committee report, 17 percent of high-level officials in Moon's Cabinet remained multiple-home owners at the end of the administration

Lee's other nominees and appointees, including the president's top national security adviser Wi Sung-lac, have similarly faced scrutiny over owning expensive homes in sought-after neighborhoods.

Kim Heon-dong, former president of the Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation, said regardless of which administration is in power, high-level offices "shouldn't be filled with the top 1 percent."

"Multiple-home owners in high offices will be reluctant to introduce policies that are going to drop housing prices," Kim told The Korea Herald. "These wealthy Cabinet picks do not reflect the reality of most average South Koreans who are struggling to find a home they can afford to buy."

People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a group of liberal lawyers, said in a statement that the Lee administration was failing to come up with "open and acceptable" criteria for how the president is picking who will serve on his Cabinet.