Democratic Party Criticizes LH Scandal in Unison... "‘LH Speculation Prevention Act’ to be Passed in March National Assembly"

Lee Nak-yeon "Forced Investigation on Family and Alias Transactions"
Kim Tae-nyeon "LH Speculation Prevention Law to be Passed in March National Assembly"
Park Young-sun "If Elected Seoul Mayor, Crackdown on Real Estate Speculation Police"

[Asia Economy Reporter Jeon Jinyoung] The Democratic Party of Korea on the 8th collectively criticized the speculation controversy involving employees of the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) and announced plans to establish measures to prevent recurrence, aiming to handle them within the March National Assembly session.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Lee Nak-yeon, the party leader, said at the Central Election Countermeasures Committee meeting held at Park Young-sun’s Seoul mayoral candidate camp that morning, “We will punish the offenders most severely and establish the strongest recurrence prevention measures in the shortest possible time to ensure that such incidents never happen again.”

Lee also emphasized that strict punishment would be imposed on speculation using the names of family members or relatives instead of the individual’s own name. He stated, “Regarding transactions under real or borrowed names, we will reveal everything as it is through compulsory investigations and impose the strongest penalties allowed by current law.”

Kim Tae-nyeon, the floor leader, said he would pursue legislation to prevent the recurrence of such public official speculation cases. Kim said, “Just like financial crimes, we will recover the speculative profits of public officials,” adding, “On March 5, Assemblyman Moon Jin-seok proposed a bill that imposes fines three to five times the speculative profits, and Assemblyman Park Sang-hyuk is also scheduled to propose a bill today.”

He continued, “We will prioritize the so-called ‘LH Speculation Prevention Act’ in the March National Assembly session, which includes recovering speculative profits from public officials, strengthening punishments such as restricting employment and licensing acquisition for speculative public officials,” emphasizing the urgency of the matter.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

Candidate Park stated, “Illegally obtained profits must be fully recovered and confiscated,” and pledged to conduct crackdowns through the police if elected mayor of Seoul. He said, “We will deploy the Seoul Special Judicial Police and, in the future, autonomous police to monitor and crack down on real estate speculation across Seoul using internal or unfair information, that is, public office,” raising his voice to say, “We will make a major transformation so that speculative forces cannot gain a foothold in Seoul.”

He also added, “If I become the mayor of Seoul, I will create systems to prevent similar incidents from occurring at Seoul City Hall and the Seoul Housing and Communities Corporation (SH),” and “We will establish a monitoring organization involving citizens for continuous monitoring, operate a reporting center, and build a response system.”