Solar Project Found Corruption in South Korea
Sep 17, 2022
South Korea's Office for Government Policy Coordination has found 210.8 billion won (1.05 billion yuan) in corruption involved in a solar energy project under former President Moon Jae-in's administration during a sampling investigation.
According to Yonhap News agency, South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol responded to the incident on Monday by saying, "The illegal acts involved will be dealt with through normal judicial procedures, and those who recklessly used taxpayers' money will be severely punished."
The Office for Government Policy Coordination said on Thursday that there are serious problems with the power industry Foundation fund project, which the former Moon Jae-in administration invested about 12 trillion won over five years. According to the investigation, 2,267 cases of illegal and corrupt projects involved 261.6 billion won, of which 80.5 percent were related to solar projects.
It was found that there were illegal cases such as forging tax invoices and illegally installing solar energy facilities on farmland during the project process, and accounting problems such as split arbitrary contracts and fraudulent settlement statements were found in the subsidy project.
In some cases, the amount of equity investment is zero won. Briefings on the day the state of adjustment for Fang Wengui said, "power generation enterprises through the tax invoice exaggerating after the loan amount, you don't take a penny of installed solar power generation facilities", "and then production of electricity sold to pay off loans, the Korea electric power commune has been in this way, without the investment, can keep the management".
"In any case, this result shows that (the Moon Jae-in administration) pushed too hard to implement the new renewable energy policy and did not have enough time to prepare for it, causing problems at the grassroots level in implementing the policy," Bang said. "The Korea Energy Corporation supported 6,500 projects between 2019 and 2021. A lot of unlicensed companies are getting subsidies."
According to the Office for Government Policy Coordination, Prime Minister Han Duck-soo sighed after hearing the report, "The solar energy project is a bottomless pit that is draining the national Treasury."
