74 External Company Officials and Supervisory Staff
Paju Project Team Leader Suspended, Strong Measures Taken
Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) has filed complaints against companies related to apartment complexes with missing rebar, and it has been confirmed that internal employees have also been requested for investigation.
On the 8th, LH announced that on the 4th, it requested the police to investigate 74 design, construction, and supervision companies of 15 apartment complexes confirmed to have poor construction, along with the supervision staff responsible for LH's own supervised complexes.
Initially, LH's investigation request was known to include only the external 74 companies' personnel, but employees responsible for supervision and oversight at LH regional headquarters were also included.
In the case of internal employees, the usual procedure involves internal audits first, but this time the police investigation was requested without going through such procedures. This is interpreted as a measure considering that if LH conducts its own investigation through internal audits, there could be criticism of leniency.
Recently, LH has been taking strong personnel measures, such as placing the head of the Paju project team on standby after controversy arose over secretly conducting reinforcement work under the guise of 'painting work' at the Paju Unjeong 3 (A23) complex without informing residents.
LH will also conduct organizational diagnostics through external consulting to reform organizational culture, including the alleged preferential treatment of former officials, which has been pointed out as a cause of the rebar omission incident.
Meanwhile, on the 7th, Won Hee-ryong, Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, stated on Facebook, "We will actively consider completely excluding companies involving former LH officials from service contracts."
Regarding this, Minister Won said at a meeting with reporters that day, "If we say not to hire former officials, they hire them at subsidiaries to launder, and if we try to crack down on that, they work as freelancers," adding, "Within a short period of about one to two months, we will definitely create measures that have never existed before."
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