Audit Results on the Preparation and Utilization of National Statistics Revealed
"Influence Exerted 102 Times on Real Estate Board's Statistical Compilation"
An audit revealed that during the Moon Jae-in administration, the Presidential Secretariat (Blue House), Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and others directly and indirectly pressured the Statistics Korea and Korea Real Estate Board, which are statistical agencies, to manipulate various housing statistics figures.
On the 17th, the Board of Audit and Inspection disclosed the results of the "Audit on the Preparation and Utilization of Major National Statistics" and announced that it requested disciplinary actions and personnel data notifications for a total of 31 officials from the Blue House, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Korea Real Estate Board, and Statistics Korea who modified and distorted statistical figures and descriptive information.
Earlier, on the 10th, the Board of Audit and Inspection finalized the "Audit Results on the Preparation and Utilization of Major National Statistics," which was preliminarily announced in September 2023, by resolution of the Audit Committee.
According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, at that time, the Blue House and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport exerted undue influence on the Korea Real Estate Board's statistical preparation process a total of 102 times from 2018 to October 2021, causing adjustments to the statistical figures.
The Nationwide Housing Price Trend Survey is conducted weekly and monthly by the Korea Real Estate Board to investigate sales, jeonse (long-term lease), and monthly rent prices in the national housing market, measuring average price changes. However, around June 2017, the Blue House and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport instructed the Korea Real Estate Board to provide preliminary data such as the mid-week index of the statistics being prepared, expressing a desire to know the statistical results in advance.
In response, the Korea Real Estate Board requested suspension 12 times from June 2017 to November 2021, citing reasons such as the short survey period making it difficult to secure statistical reliability, but these requests were rejected. According to Article 27-2 of the Statistics Act, unless there is a legitimate reason, "statistics being prepared" or "prepared statistics" cannot be provided externally or leaked before publication.
"Government announcement effects demanded to be reflected in statistics without objective grounds"
The Blue House and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport also exerted influence to adjust statistical figures. The first instance of undue influence occurred in January 2018 with distortion of weekly fluctuation rates in Yangcheon, Seoul, and Bundang, Seongnam. As the market surged in the second half of the year, the Blue House and the Ministry demanded that government announcement effects (such as the withdrawal of Yeouido and Yongsan development plans) be reflected in the statistics without objective grounds.
In the first half of 2019, as the Seoul housing market showed an upward trend again, in June, the Blue House and the Ministry requested the Korea Real Estate Board to lower the fluctuation rates for the President's and Minister's two-year inauguration anniversaries, and in July and August, they pressured by mentioning budget cuts and personnel actions.
In November of the same year, despite receiving reports at the Office of Public Service Discipline Secretary that "statistics are being distorted due to external pressure from the Blue House and the Ministry," the Blue House and the Ministry, who received this information, tacitly allowed the distortion of fluctuation rates without proper measures.
When housing prices continued to rise despite the June 17 and July 10 measures in 2020, the Blue House and the Ministry demanded that fluctuation rates be lowered to reflect that the market had stabilized due to government measures, resulting in the same fluctuation rate of 0.01% being announced for 10 consecutive weeks from August to October 2020, deepening the distortion.
In particular, immediately after the July 10 measures were announced, when the preliminary figure was reported as 0.12%, higher than the previous week's 0.11%, the Blue House called the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and reprimanded, "What is the Ministry doing now?" In response, the Ministry requested the Korea Real Estate Board to reflect the effect of the measures in the fluctuation rate and adjust it to a single digit (below 0.09%).
Manipulation of income inequality-related statistics
Statistical manipulation also occurred in household income and income inequality-related statistics. The Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out that Statistics Korea arbitrarily applied weighting values not included in the sample design without proper procedures to increase household income after preliminary aggregated results for household income in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th quarters of 2017 showed a decrease compared to the previous year.
Furthermore, when the "income quintile" ratio, which indicates the degree of income inequality, showed the worst-ever figure (5.95) in the first quarter of 2018, the Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out that the weighting application criteria were arbitrarily changed to lower the income quintile ratio figures, making it appear less severe.
In addition, in the employment sector, it was revealed that the Blue House demanded that the main cause of the surge in non-regular workers be explained as a problem with the survey method. In August 2019, when preliminary aggregated results of the "Supplementary Survey by Employment Type of the Economically Active Population Survey" predicted a surge in non-regular workers, the Blue House instructed Statistics Korea to announce that it was due to the "parallel survey effect."
The Board of Audit and Inspection stated, "We requested disciplinary actions for 14 officials and personnel data notifications for 17 officials among a total of 31 officials from the Blue House, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Korea Real Estate Board, and Statistics Korea. We also instructed the Ministry and Statistics Korea to establish measures to improve the accuracy and reliability of statistics and to thoroughly manage related tasks in the future."
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