Roh’s Camp Manipulated 14.9 billion won

The Election Plan Committee of then-presidential candidate, Roh Moo-hyun, was suspected of adopting an expedient early December last year right before the presidential election in dealing with the support fund of 14.9 billion won collected by the Central Party – using receipts from supporters’ association of four different cities and provincial branches.

According to the four cities and provincial branches in Seoul, Gyeonggi, Incheon and Jeju on October 29, they handed over the receipts under the request from the Central Party’s Election Plan Committee early December last year right after the decision of one-candidate. The receipts were taken as: 4.2 billion won from Seoul, 3.6 billion won from Incheon, 4.1 billion won from Gyeonggi, and 2.9 billion won from Jeju.

Lee Sang-su, former Secretary General of the Democratic Party, presented the transaction details of July that showed the above amounts, but related officials at the party insisted that a manipulative expedient was used and the money raised at the Central Party was distributed to different cities and provincial branches to be taken care of.

The Seoul branch has handed over - 1,162 not-fixed amount of receipts from December to February this year, 557 of the fixed amount receipts of ten-thousand voucher, 774 of one hundred thousand voucher, 50 of five hundred-thousand voucher, 273 of one million won voucher, and others – to the Central Election Plan Committee to be taken care of. A related official from the Seoul branch said, “There was a request of receipts to the city’s branch because the maximum amount of the supporters’ association at the Central Party had been exceeded.”

The Democratic Party said, “Through our auditing of last year’s Election Plan Committee for the presidential election, we found out that fraud accounting had existed at the amount of 12,850 million won.”

Noh Gwan-gyu, Chairman of the Party Budget Special Committee, said in a press interview on October 29, “Lee Sang-su, then-chief of the General Affair Department of the Election Plan Committee, had claimed fraud to the Central Party’s accounting office three times and was suspected of so-called ‘money laundering.’”

Relating to this, former Chief Lee said, “I found enormous problems in accounting when I became the Secretary General of the Democratic Party and I am aware of the crucial parts. They (The Democratic Party) said that I usurped 600 million won, but the Party has a much bigger problem.”

Meanwhile, Kang Kum-sil, Minister of Justice, said relating to the presidential election fund investigation, “We will investigate the matter in order to find the truth about the suspicions roused without treating any specific place as ‘sacred.’ We have reports that the investigation will exert some account tracing.”

The Grand National Party embarked on cooperative work with the Democratic Party and the United Liberal Democrats to moderate the finalized special investigation law of the presidential election funds and authority-oriented corruption.

Sung-Won Park Myoung-Gun Lee swpark@donga.com gun43@donga.com