Broadcasting Commission: "KBS Should Apportion Its Earned Income to the National Treasury"

The Korean Broadcasting Commission sent the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAI) an official document that says, “It is proper for the Korea Broadcasting System (KBS) to apportion its earned income to the national treasury, and this should be laid down in laws or regulations, such as a broadcasting act.”

The commission pointed out that KBS, whose total shares are owned by the government, made an enormous amount of money in the past 20 years, but did not pay the dividend to the government on the grounds that it is a nonprofit corporation.

“The KBS generates profits from a license fee, advertisement, etc., therefore it is desirous to allot its earned income to the national treasury, like other government invested organizations,” according to the official document presented by Lawmaker Kim Jae-kyeong of Grand National Party on Sunday. The commission sent the document on March 15 this year.

“It is advisable that matters regarding profits and losses of KBS be expressed not in articles of association but in a law,” the commission advised BAI. The articles of association of KBS stipulate that the board of directors decides the dividend to the government, but KBS does not follow it.

GNP is examining whether to include rules regarding the KBS’s government apportion as a revision of the broadcasting act.

“KBS has the money for apportion with the earned income 424.3 billion won at the end of 2003, and the net profit of 103.1 billion won in 2002,” said GNP lawmaker Jung Byeong-guk.

Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) paid 50 percent of its net profit of 4.2 billion to the government in 2002, and 13 other government-funded agencies paid their dividends.

While settling accounts on September, the National Assembly’s Finance-Economy Committee demanded that, according to the National Assembly Law that requires correction of illegal or improper matters, government-funded agencies, including KBS, pay the allotment.

Myoung-Gun Lee Seung-Heon Lee gun43@donga.com ddr@donga.com