President Roh Asks, “How in the World Did This Happen?”

On May 20, President Roh Moo-hyun harshly criticized government officials for their “carelessness in policy after-service” as many people have been thrown out onto the streets without receiving a refund of their deposits following the bankruptcies of companies in charge of managing public rental apartments.

President Roh personally presides over the Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor meeting every Wednesday, but he attended this day’s meeting without prior plans and discussed this issue.

President Roh saw cases of victims of this matter on the program “Chase 60 minutes” on KBS 2TV on the evening of May 18, and called Kim Young-joo, senior advisor to the President for economic policy, to ask “What in the world happened?”

President Roh has declared war on real estate speculation, and has been putting efforts into the residential rental property policies to stabilize housing for the public. He concluded that the after-service of the policies has been insufficient and has ended up producing the same problems that existed before.

Civil appeals on this issue are flooding the Cheong Wa Dae homepage. At this meeting, the person in charge, Minister Choo Byung-jik of the Ministry of Construction and Transportation also was called to attend.

The participants of the meeting first watched the program broadcasted on May 18, which was edited to 20 minutes upon request, then discussed the issue.

President Roh stated, “We must find a way to maintain the credibility of these policies while allowing the businesses to operate freely.” He emphasized, “There must not be any victims for whom there is no solution.”

He also said, “The public officials did not thoroughly consider what may happen in the future. They should all be ready to take responsibility for any side effects that may happen following the implementation of a policy. This type of irresponsible action will only bring about mistrust from the citizens.”

During the meeting, there were questions on whether the investigation process of businesses for National Housing Fund loans is insufficient.

Jung-Hun Kim jnghn@donga.com