[Exclusive] Billiard Tables and Baseball Pitching as Fitness Training?…'Eok' Worth LH and Railroad Corporation Employee Welfare

LH installs billiard table worth 3.2 million won
KR Railroad Corporation spends 180 million won on baseball pitching machines and more
Yoo Kyung-jun "Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport must conduct thorough investigation of excessive welfare benefits"

Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) has been found to have installed a billiard table in its office under the pretext of physical training and shifted part of the cost to construction company employees. The Korea Railroad Corporation (KR), under the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, has spent nearly 200 million won over the past five years on purchasing baseball practice pitching machines and bowling balls, raising concerns that public institutions under the ministry continue to engage in wasteful management for employee welfare.

According to data submitted by LH to Yoo Kyung-jun, a member of the National Assembly Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee from the People Power Party, one of LH’s business headquarters installed a billiard table in the office and turned it into a fitness room. According to LH’s construction work guidelines, fitness rooms can be installed at field business offices. However, this business headquarters created the fitness room not in a field office but in the business headquarters office.

Status of Fitness Equipment Installation Submitted by Korea Land and Housing Corporation (Provided by the Office of Assemblyman Yoo Kyung-jun)

This business headquarters misappropriated the contract budget for a housing development project, which was to be paid to the construction company as the contractor, to purchase a billiard table worth about 3.2 million won. Initially, the billiard table was placed on one side of the office classified as a cabinet, but they spent an additional 490,000 won on partition construction within the office. Furthermore, citing issues with the billiard table cushions, they forced construction company employees to bear 550,000 won in replacement costs.

However, the punishment was lenient. LH’s audit office detected the budget misappropriation by the head of the business headquarters and requested a one-month salary reduction as disciplinary action, but the personnel committee issued the lightest penalty, a 'reprimand,' citing past awards as the reason.

The Korea Railroad Corporation, a subsidiary of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, spent more than 180 million won over five years since 2018 to purchase 121 exercise equipment items. Detailed expenditure includes a pitching machine for baseball batting practice (about 5.15 million won), a body composition analyzer (about 20 million won), a body fat meter (about 6.5 million won), and bowling balls (about 300,000 won).

Representative Yoo said, "What is the meaning of billiard tables and baseball pitching machines in Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport-related work?" He added, "The Ministry should conduct a thorough investigation of excessive welfare benefits in public institutions under its jurisdiction, including LH and Korea Railroad Corporation, and adjust them according to related regulations such as the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s innovation guidelines to meet public expectations."