A lawmaker skinning a flea for its hide

A slew of scandals have unveiled lawmakers’ immoral behavior. Rep. Yoon Hoo-deok asked a company to hire his daughter, Rep. Shin Ki-nam tried to influence a law school for his son’s graduation exam, Rep. Noh Young-min placed a credit card device to sell his book of poetry at the National Assembly, and Rep. Park Dae-dong of the ruling Saenuri Party extorted his aide’s monthly salary. The first three lawmakers are the members of the group for the underprivileged of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy. If they had a sense of responsibility as public figures, such scandals would not have happened.

Rep. Park is said to have received around 15 million won (12,900 U.S. dollars), 1.2 million won (1,033 dollars) per month for 13 months for the maintenance of his office in his constituency of Ulsan, from his aide who he hired until January. Around a third of the aide’s monthly salary is 1.2 million. It is reportedly said when the aide said he had difficulty in his living, Rep. Park said, "Are you here to make money?” The lawmaker, however, made a false clarification that the aide had agreed with him. Park spent the money in a more nonsensical way. The aide later found that the lawmaker spent the money on the maintenance costs of his apartment and buying yogurt. This can be called embezzlement.

A lawmaker is entitled to hire nine aides including two interns, too many aides for a lawmaker. It is not well known but very common that lawmakers extort salary from their aides. Some hire aides on condition that they return their salary or steal some of the difference in return for raising their title. Others hire their family members, relatives and even “non-existing people” as aides, and steal their salary. Probably, lawmakers increased the number of their aides little by little to do such a thing.

Lawmakers even raise hundreds of millions of won (hundreds of thousands of dollars) in donations in addition to the annual allowance of 137,960,000 won (118,828 dollars). Even they are provided with aides, office space, vehicles and entire maintenance costs. Rep. Park reported 870 million won (749,350 dollars) for his wealth this year, up by around 100 million won (86,130 dollars) year-on-year. He is skinning a flea for its hide, being greedy to steal his aides’ monthly salary. He sponsored a bill on temporary workers in September. It is regrettable to know some lawmakers are hypocrites who actually capitalize on the underprivileged while pretending they care for them.

jinnyong@donga.com