6 Special GNP Committees Looking into Roh Administration Corruption

The Grand National Party (GNP) announced yesterday that Busan developer Kim Sang-jin illegally took out an aggregate total of $430 million in loans from diverse financial institutions. The party has been looking into various corruption scandals of the Roh administration. Former presidential aide Jeong Yun-jae is believed to have pulled strings for Kim.

Rep. Park Gye-dong, who supervises all the GNP investigative efforts, told reporters yesterday at the party headquarters in Seoul, “Kim pulled out a total of $433.2 million loans from various institutions to finance his Yeonsan-dong redevelopment project. For example, Kim borrowed $330 million from commercial banks, $94 million from the Korean Veterans’ Association, and $6.2 million from state-run guarantee corporations.”

Congressman Park further disclosed, “Kim won 6 government contracts when Roh [Moo-hyun] was the Marine Affairs Minister. His company, however, did not win any bid once Roh resigned. But when Roh came back as president, Kim won 13 additional contracts from the government. All the facts point to some cozy relationship between Roh and Kim.” Furthermore, the party is reportedly looking into the corporate donations Roh received as president-elect.

Currently, the party runs six special committees to investigate six major categories of corruption scandals involving the Roh administration or Roh himself: the donations to President-elect Roh, the alleged bribery-based deal concerning Star City, Hanwha’s suspicious purchase of the Gunja Landfill, allegations concerning Jeong Dong-young, the “Jeong Yun-jae and Kim Sang-jin” connection, and corruption scandals concerning Shin Jeong-ah.

GNP Congressman Ju Sung-young confirmed over the phone, “As far as we have confirmed, Roh received an astronomical amount of donations from Korean chaebols. We have confirmed that the prosecution did investigate the fishy donations, but it has not disclosed the results. We will dig out the dirt during the upcoming congressional hearings.

sunshade@donga.com