Officials Purchased Gold and Paid Tens of Millions of Won Debt with Government Cards

The Board of Audit and Inspection revealed hundreds of illegal cases by public workers related to government charge cards. The government watchdog said some public officials purchased gold with the government credit cards in order to resell it and that the board is looking into whether public officials will be charged with embezzlement.

“We tracked government card records of credit delinquent public servants and found hundreds of cases in which official credit cards were used to purchase gold,” an official with the audit board said. “Considering that officials used government cards to buy gold when there was no reason to do so, they are suspected of paying off personal credit debts with government charge cards.”

“During the preliminary investigation, a small number of public officials at some government departments were found to have spent tens of millions of won with credit cards, taking advantage of credit charge revolving systems. There will be more cases found once the full-scale investigation begins,” he said.

Among some 500 credit delinquent public servants who are targets of the special investigation, the audit board will focus on personnel in management and administrative departments of government offices.

One official said, “The reason behind these embezzlement cases is the lack of a monitoring system over the use of official credit cards. We will punish related individuals and come up with measures to improve relevant systems when the investigation concludes.”

Anyone found to have used the government cards to pay off personal debt will be considered to have embezzled public funds even if the money was repaid later and will be harshly punished.

Young-Hae Choi yhchoi65@donga.com