“There has never been a BAI like this,” Unprecedented audits of senior officials in previous government

The sign of the Board of Audit and Inspection in Jongno-gu, Seoul on July 25. Jo Tae-hyeong

“Independently in our own way, we have been faithful to our duties in any age. However, in the early days of a new government, the previous government is bound to be subject to the audits.” What Yoo Byung-ho, secretary-general of the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI), said before the Legislation and Judiciary Committee in the National Assembly on July 14 is, in principle, correct. Given the characteristics of an audit, which can take months from the launch of a probe to a public decision by the Council of Commissioners, many of the audit results announced in the early days of a new government are likely to concern the previous government.

The problem is that inspections of the previous government have exceeded the general level. On July 30, the Kyunghyang Shinmun examined the audits and inspections conducted in the early days of a new government from the Lee Myung-bak government to the present and discovered that in the Yoon Suk-yeol government, there have been an overwhelming number of investigation requests and reports on senior officials usually referred to as “the previous government’s people.” In the past, most of the reports by the Board of Audit and Inspection in the early days of a new government involved corruption, but in the incumbent government, many were related to government tasks. The BAI is also actively taking advantage of the regular inspections by the Bureau of Special Investigations, without any review by the Council of Commissioners, which plays the role of the court within the Board. This is why the Board has come under fire for conducting “political inspections,” which cannot be explained as something usual in the early days of a new government.

■ Notable investigation requests and reports on figures in the previous government

According to the “Inspection Report on the Settlement of Accounts,” which the Board of Audit and Inspection submits to the National Assembly every year in May, in 2008, the early days of the Lee Myung-bak government, the Board filed 32 reports and investigation requests for 106 people. The BAI submitted 52 reports and investigation requests for 72 people in 2013, shortly after the inauguration of the Park Geun-hye government; 35 reports for 75 people in 2017, the early days of the Moon Jae-in government; and 24 probe requests and reports concerning 60 people last year, the first year of the Yoon Suk-yeol government. According to the figures, the number of investigation requests seemed to have dropped in the Yoon Suk-yeol government.

But a look at cases concerning officials from the previous government shows that these numbers can be deceptive. So far, during the fourteen months under the Yoon Suk-yeol government, the Board of Audit and Inspection has requested a probe into or reported at least five high-ranking officials in the previous government: Suh Hoon, former Cheongwadae director of national security; Park Jie-won, former director of the National Intelligence Service; Suh Wook, former minister of national defense; Kim Eun-kyung, former minister of environment; and Jeon Hyun-heui, former chairperson of the Anti-corruption & Civil Rights Commission. The charges mentioned against them were dereliction of one’s duty, abuse of authority, and the preparation of false public documents—mostly related to their tasks.

When we include opposition party members, the scope of the BAI reports broadens. Last April, when the presidential transition committee was in operation after Yoon Suk-yeol was elected president, the Board requested an investigation of Yoo Dong-kyu, the former director of planning at the Seongnam Development Corporation. The Board reported Kim Seok-joon, former superintendent of education in the Busan Metropolitan Office of Education, to the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials for unjustly employing teachers who had been dismissed. The Board also requested investigations in line with the “code” of the incumbent government, such as inspections of private nonprofit organizations and of corruption in the solar energy business, which may not have involved officials in ranks high enough to be referred to as key figures in the previous government. These probes were launched after the inauguration of President Yoon Suk-yeol.

■ A level unprecedented even in the MB government and the Moon Jae-in government

The Board of Audit and Inspection under past governments was different. In the Lee Myung-bak government, the Board never requested investigations of or reported key figures in the previous government. Directors under the Board’s jurisdiction and presidents of public enterprises were mostly the target of audits, and the cases focused on the corruption of individuals, which were not highly task-related. However, the Board did request the government to dismiss Chung Yeon-joo, the president of KBS at the time, after a special audit.

There was an unusual case where the BAI launched a probe into an incumbent Cheongwadae senior secretary. Park Byung-won, the senior secretary to President Lee Myung-bak on economic affairs, was subject to an investigation by the BAI after a general audit on financial institutions receiving public funds. Park resigned a few days after news of the probe was released to the public. In the Park Geun-hye government, which was a re-enactment of a conservative government, there were no notable investigation requests or reports on key figures from the previous government. The only probe the Board sought was of Kim Hak-kyu, the mayor of Yongin, Gyeonggi, who was a member of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy, for allegedly issuing a development license in exchange for bribes from a real estate developer.

Even in the Moon Jae-in government, which sought to eradicate long-established irregularities after entering office, there were not many investigation requests into people linked to the previous government. One notable case could be the investigation of Kim Jong, former vice minister of culture, sports and tourism, in connection to the Choi Soon-sil scandal. He served in the previous government, but his case was not one that particularly aimed at the previous government, since it was based on an audit result agreed upon by both the ruling and opposition parties in December 2016. In an audit on the selection of companies for new duty-free businesses, which was a follow-up investigation to the probe into the abuse of state authority by former President Park Geun-hye, Cheon Hong-uk, the commissioner of the Korea Customs Service at the time, was reported for canceling a business plan. The BAI discovered procedural problems linked to the Lee Myung-bak government’s “Master Plan to Revive the Four Major Rivers,” but did not request disciplinary action or an investigation for the statute of limitations had expired. The only notable probes into opposition figures were investigation requests for Choi Heung-jip, the former president of Kangwon Land, in connection with the unfair recruitment of Kim, a secretary to People Power Party (Liberty Korea Party at the time) lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong. There was also an audit into the loudspeaker (propaganda) project against North Korea conducted in the days of the Park Geun-hye government.

■ All five investigation requests were made without a review by the Council of Commissioners

All the investigation requests and reports filed by the Board of Audit and Inspection in the Yoon Suk-yeol government were made without undergoing a review by the Council of Commissioners, which acts as a court within the Board. The case of the four major rivers, which led to an investigation request for former minister Kim, started out as a request for an audit concerning public interest. When it comes to an audit concerning public interest, the BAI Secretariat can decide whether to launch an investigation, so it can be heavily influenced by a political decision by the Board.

Another significant factor is that the Board actively took advantage of inspections by the Bureau of Special Investigations, another way to avoid the Council of Commissioners. According to the information that the BAI submitted to the office of Democratic Party of Korea legislator Park Yong-jin, last year, the Board conducted six audits without any deliberation by the Council of Commissioners. Two were regular inspections: the field inspection of corruption in public office and the inspection of public office discipline during election season. The other four inspections were on the funding status of private nonprofit organizations; the management of the performance of public officials, known as an investigation of Jeon, the former chairperson of the Anti-corruption & Civil Rights Commission; the death of a civil servant in the Yellow Sea; and the KBS license fees imposed on the public. Other than the KBS audit, all the cases were overseen by the special investigation bureau.

The special investigation bureau can move separately from the audit plan, so it is referred to as a “mobile unit” within the Board of Audit and Inspection. The Board argues that there is no problem with the inspections conducted by this bureau, since the Council of Commissioners are to determine the “annual audit plan” including the “regular inspections of public office.” But within the Board, people argued that inspections by the special investigation bureau should also be approved by the Council of Commissioners and that the nature of the Yellow Sea case was different from a regular inspection of public office.

Recently, Kim Seok-dong, the chief of the first division of the Bureau of Special Investigations was promoted to director of the Bureau. Kim conducted an audit of the Wolsong Nuclear Power Plant with Yoo Byung-ho, secretary general of the BAI, and is his close aide. The latest promotion was the fastest in the history of the BAI, since Kim was promoted to director in less than a year since he was promoted to deputy director last August.