[News Today] CORRUPT LH-BUILDER TIES FOUND

[LEAD]
Last year, a parking garage under construction in Geomdan, Incheon collapsed, revealing loopholes in the construction process. An investigation by the Board of Audit and Inspection has uncovered not only routine improper subcontracting from the design phase but also clear signs of cronyism, backed by multiple overseas golf trips between a Korea Land and Housing Corporation employee and a company CEO, a former executive at LH.

[REPORT]
This is an apartment complex in Geomdan, Incheon where an underground parking garage that was under construction collapsed in April 2023.

At the time, a probe blamed the accident on missing steel rebars, which should have been used in concrete structures.

The Board of Audit and Inspection found out that rebars were left out of the floor plan from the design stage.

Violating the regulation that structural design and floor plan blueprint needs to be done by the same company, the architecture firm divided up the tasks and commissioned them to two separate firms, resulting in a design error.

They wrote up fake payment documents or signed dual contracts to receive service charge refunds.

Twenty-three shoddily built apartments all lacked rebars but the Korea Land and Housing Corporation known as LH failed to supervise or inspect the construction properly.

Jeon Hyeong-cheol / Board of Audit and Inspection
As LH neglected its structural design review and supervision, rebars required in flat plate structures were left out of the design and construction stages.

The BAI also found several cases in which former LH officials who retired recently were given privileges or formed collusive ties with the housing corporation.

One LH deputy department head received gift certificates worth 800,000 won (a little over 580 USD) from a materials supplier and went on multiple overseas golf trips with a company CEO who used to work for LH.

BAI demanded LH to fire this employee while requesting the prosecutor's office to conduct an investigation.

A BAI probe also discovered that three other LH supervisor-level officials each played some 30 rounds of golf with a former LH official and were wined and dined over a three-year period.

LH said that the corrupt employees were dismissed immediately after checking the facts and vowed to take strict measures as dictated by the audit results.