Gyeonggi-do Awards 16.7 Million Won to Whistleblower

Status of Reward Payments to Whistleblowers in Gyeonggi-do

Gyeonggi Province will pay a total of 16.7 million KRW in rewards for 26 public interest reports.

On the 23rd, Gyeonggi Province announced that it recently held the "2024 2nd Gyeonggi Province Public Interest Reporting Support Committee" and decided to pay a total of 16.7 million KRW in rewards for 26 reports, including illegal waste landfill and unreported waste utilization business activities.

This reward payment review, held for the first time after operating a focused reporting period for environmental public interest violations in June, concentrated on reviewing public interest violations that breached major environmental laws such as the Waste Management Act, the Atmospheric Environment Conservation Act, and the Water Environment Conservation Act.

The committee first decided to pay a total of 15.05 million KRW in rewards for 21 reports, considering factors such as the severity of environmental pollution acts, the degree of contribution to public interest like environmental conservation, the difficulty of reporting, and fairness compared to other reward cases.

Additionally, for an internal public interest reporter who reported illegal waste discharge, the committee decided to pay an increased reward of 1.5 million KRW, higher than the original review standard, citing that without the reporter’s notification, detecting the public interest violation would have been difficult, the reporter courageously reported as an internal whistleblower, and the public interest promotion effect was significant by preventing harm to public health and the environment caused by water pollution.

A representative of the Gyeonggi Province Public Interest Reporting Support Committee stated, "To sufficiently prove public interest violations, active reporting or submission of evidence by internal public interest reporters is often necessary," and added, "By actively increasing the reward amounts during the review process considering this, we hope it will help more stakeholders courageously make public interest reports in the future."