"Forgery of Air Tickets and Purchase of Nutritional Supplements"...Massive Detection of False Claims for Local Council Business Trip Expenses

243 Assemblies Spend 35.5 Billion Won Budget
Members and Staff Pay Expenses Directly
Visit Tourist Attractions During Business Trips

Over the past three years, a significant number of cases have been identified in which local council members inflated expenses through methods such as manipulating airline tickets during overseas business trips organized by local councils.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) announced on the 16th that it had uncovered numerous violations of travel-related regulations after conducting a comprehensive inspection of local council members' overseas business trips from January 2022 to last May.

According to the ACRC, 243 local councils spent approximately 35.5 billion KRW on 915 trips over the past three years. Including trips accompanied by local council members, the total number of trips rose to 1,400, with expenditures reaching about 40 billion KRW.

Among these, 44.2% (405 trips) involved falsifying airline tickets to claim budgets exceeding the actual airfare. The amount printed on the airline tickets differed from the real cost, allowing them to receive more airfare than was actually paid.

With a large number of council staff accompanying the trips, cases where local council members personally covered travel expenses for staff accounted for 13% (117 trips) of the total. In Council B, 10 local council members brought along 7 staff members during a trip and directly paid approximately 9 million KRW in staff expenses. The ACRC judged that such actions violated the prohibition of donation acts stipulated in the Public Official Election Act.

Trips with excessive incidental expenses accounted for 19.5% (178 trips) of the total. Some council members purchased hangover remedies, nutritional supplements, and fatigue relief products using the budget, and there were cases where ramen and kimchi were charged for over 2 million KRW.

Additionally, some cases were confirmed where non-work-related scheduled tourist activities were conducted during business trips. The inspection revealed that Council C’s 4-night, 6-day trip to Australia consisted entirely of visits to tourist sites such as the Opera House.

The ACRC plans to request investigations into illegal activities related to overseas business trips and notify local governments and local councils of matters requiring disciplinary action and reimbursement. Furthermore, to accurately track travel expenses, the ACRC intends to request the Ministry of the Interior and Safety to integrate information on travel expenses, reviews, and expenditures into a single Overseas Business Trip Training Information System.

An ACRC official stated, "We will continue efforts to promote the violations identified through inspections so that a proper culture can be established within local councils."