State Land Used to Build Golf Courses

According to a recent report, state-owned land has been managed poorly. State assets, which should be exclusively saved for public use, have been leased to private golf courses and numerous private contracts, which violate regulations, have been made on those golf courses without permission.

219,804 pyeong (725,340 square meters) of administrative assets that the Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT) has consigned to local governments and their affiliate organizations have been turned into 67 golf courses, according to the MOCT’s report, “The Status of State Property Turned into Golf Courses,” submitted Monday to Uri Party lawmaker Hong Jae-hyong, a member of National Assembly’s Construction and Transportation Committee.

Local governments have been earning some 1.7 billion won (US $1.7 million) for leasing the state-held land. However, there have been a great number of violations of the law in the process of leasing.

According to the enforcement ordinances of state-property law, permission for the use or commercialization of state administrative assets is only granted when the assets are utilized for an administrative purpose, for the welfare of public servants, and when management offices acknowledge the need to give permission for a project whose function and purpose does not hamper public interest. In addition, authorization can be also granted by a competitive bid unless it is not an exceptional case for diplomatic or military reasons.

“Most of the land, which has become golf courses, is some of the state property very difficult to sell as most of it includes a road, a river and etc., and are also used for a public use,” an official of the MOCT said. “We are giving permission (to private businesses) if they do not use the land against public interest.”

leon@donga.com