“Another 4.2 Billion Won in Roh’s Camp”

The Millennium Democratic Party unveiled that it had found another illegal campaign fund worth 4.2 billion won that was delivered to local campaign organizations from the Roh Moo-hyun camp’s campaign organization on December 31, 2002 during the presidential campaign period.

However, the Uri Party refuted it by saying that it was a portion of official funds to support district party chapters, which had been already opened to the public. In fact, such a response is expected to trigger new controversies regarding “suspicion on the illegal campaign fund 4.2” in political arena.

Choi Myeong-heon, the head of Committee for Investigation on MDP illegal campaign funds and corruption related to President Roh’s aides, said to reporters the same day, “We have secured detailed materials regarding special funds spent to support district party chapters and other municipal and provincial chapters, which are not included in official financial record released by Roh’s campaign organization.” And, he added, the “uncovered amount so far has come to 4.219 billion won.”

Choi said, “these are illegal funds raised and spent separately from the 6.898 billion won that was released by Lee Sang-soo, a lawmaker of the Uri Party and formerly Roh’s chief campaign fund manager, as official funds to support district chapters.

According to notes written in this material, Roh’s campaign organization sent special funds eight times, including 1.46 billion won delivered on December 10, 2002, right before the election, to support district party chapters and municipal and provincial chapters nationwide, except for Busan and Honam. This material bears recipients’ signatures and amounts of funds according to each chapter. “There were no funds sent to Honam, and competitive chapters mostly received funds ranging from 10 million won to 30 million won. There is a record of how they were spent but no record how the funds were raised,” the committee’s sources said. The MDP indicated that it is highly likely to raise funds by receiving receipts—which do not hold exact amounts—from supporters’ associations in the chapters of Jaeju and Inchon. The opposition Grand National Party’s spokesman Park Jin said in his comment, “The amount of illegal campaign funds for President Roh has come to more than 10 billion won, if this 4.2 billion won is included. Rather than forcing the press and the opposition party to be careful of what they are saying and what they are writing, Cheong Wa Dae should make confessions and decide whether Roh resigns or remains in office.” In response, Rep. Lee Sang-soo said, “The total amount of funds spent to support district party chapters is 6.898 billion won, and 4.2 billion won is included in this total amount. And he refuted it and added, “Despite the MDP’s argument that no funds were sent to Honam, we sent 6.8 billion won to chapters in Honam and if subtracting this from total amount, the funds left are 4.2 billion won. Therefore, there is no problem.”

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