Shin Jeong-hoon, Chairman of the Democratic Party Jeonnam Provincial Committee, "Clear Falsehood of Factionalism and Power Abuse"

A party official of the Democratic Party of Korea's Jeonnam Provincial Party Committee directly refuted the allegations that Chairman Shin Jeong-hoon is turning the party committee into a personal fiefdom and engaging in power abuse, calling them "clear falsehoods."

Chairman Shin posted on his Facebook on the 22nd, just one day after the disclosure by Kim Yoo-seung, the party committee secretary-general, stating, "The claims of budget power abuse and turning the party into a personal fiefdom are completely untrue."

Through the post, Chairman Shin announced, "To fundamentally resolve the issue, I have requested a party audit from the central party and will establish a Financial Reform Special Committee within the provincial party."

He stated, "As the provincial party chairman, I instructed the accounting staff several times to prepare detailed budget execution plans for each project to ensure transparent and predictable budget principles are upheld," and claimed, "The accounting officer not only neglected efforts for improvement but also ignored party regulations, arbitrarily preparing and executing budgets without reporting to or obtaining approval from the provincial party chairman."

He also said, "During my nine months as Jeonnam Provincial Party Chairman, I neither requested nor used a single penny of operating expenses," adding, "While I did not arbitrarily use the chairman's operating expenses budgeted in the previous year, I sternly reprimanded and demanded correction of the accounting officer’s arbitrary budget management, who created and used a check card for chairman operating expenses that were not budgeted this year."

He continued, "The claim that the 3 billion KRW provincial party budget must be spent within this year is a thorough distortion of my true intentions," emphasizing, "It was a demand to improve the bizarre and wasteful budget allocation that left about half of the 6 billion KRW revenue budget as unspent balance due to unprincipled and non-transparent budget planning."

Furthermore, he said, "To improve the reality of Jeonnam, I intended to create a separate organization under the provincial party called the 'Jeonnam-type Basic Income Special Committee' and prepare improvement measures through research including experts, as well as conduct proper educational activities for party members," asserting, "Distorting this as favoritism by the accounting officer, who could not provide active support, is a reversal of cause and effect."

He added, "If the chairman’s demands are considered unfair, the issue can be resolved through the central party’s duty inspection at any time," and concluded, "I regard this public political attack by the provincial party secretary-general as a reflection of the widespread inertia and distorted bureaucracy within our party, and I will fight with extraordinary determination."

Meanwhile, Kim Yoo-seung, secretary-general of the Jeonnam Provincial Party Committee, publicly criticized Chairman Shin Jeong-hoon by posting an article titled "Loyalty to Prevent the One-Man Fiefdom of the Jeonnam Provincial Party" on Facebook the previous day.