Dolls of Kim Dae-jung and his wife turn out to be made of silicone, not beeswax

A doll of former President Kim Dae-jung and his wife on display at the Kim Dae-jung Nobel Peace Prize Memorial in Mokpo, South Korea. Contributed by a reader

The Mokpo city government found that an illegal and unfair contract was made in the process of creating wax figures of former President Kim Dae-jung and First Lady Lee Hee-ho which are displayed at the Kim Dae-jung Nobel Peace Prize Memorial in Mokpo. An unqualified contractor created a false document and used a low-cost material that was different from that described in the contract. It turned out that employees of the memorial signed the contract even though they knew about it.

The city government of Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, announced on March 14 that it brought a charge against the employees after conducting an audit of the Kim Dae-jung Nobel Peace Prize Memorial last year and found out that the dolls of the former president and his wife were made of silicone, not beeswax, unlike the original business plan.

According to the city government, the original business plan was to create the dolls using beeswax, but in reality, a contract was signed with a silicone doll maker that had no experience in making wax dolls. Silicone is understood to be more than 10 million won cheaper per unit than beeswax.

In addition, when signing a contract, it is required to receive and compare estimates from two or more companies, but it turned out that Company A submitted a false estimate in the name of another company. It was confirmed that the three employees of the memorial, who were involved in the contract, signed the contract with Company A even though they knew this fact.

The Mokpo city government indicted the three employees on charges of dereliction of duty, forgery and alteration of private documents, and fraudulent exercise of private documents. It also held a personnel committee and fired one of the employees involved in the contract. “We decided to file charges against the employees because they were suspected of violating their duty stipulated in the Local Accounting Law,” said an official from the Mokpo city government.

In March 2021, the dolls of former President Kim and his wife were installed on the second floor of the memorial. The Mokpo city government contributed 44 million won to the production of the dolls.o. The production was carried out by Company A in Gyeonggi Province through a private contract signed in October 2020. However, the dolls, which were unveiled five months later, caused a lot of controversy. There were complaints that the dolls bore no resemblance to its real-life counterparts and that the material used for the production was suspicious. The dolls in question were removed in January and are now stored in the memorial's storage room.

The Kim Dae-jung Nobel Peace Prize Memorial was opened in 2013 in Samhak-do, Mokpo, with the aim of spreading the meaning and values of democracy, human rights, and peace through the life of former President Kim, as well as serving as a place for history education.

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.