Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection Finds Blue House Illegally Paid a Number of Advisors That Were Friends of President Moon

A whole bunch of friends of President Moon have been illegally receiving monthly government checks:

Close associates of President Moon Jae-in received illegal monthly payments while serving in top posts of presidential advisory groups, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) said Thursday.    
   
According to the BAI’s latest audit of the Blue House, the Presidential Committee on Balanced National Development paid 4 million won ($3,400) in monthly salary to Song Jae-ho from January 2019 to last January. Song was head of the committee during the period, and he received 52 million won in total.    
   
The committee chairman is a part-time position, so Song was not eligible for a monthly salary. The committee explained to the BAI that it paid the monthly salary to Song because he served full-time as a consultant.    
   
The BAI concluded the payments violated the law governing the committee, which prohibited any routine payment of a fixed consulting fee to the chairman. 

Joong Ang Ilbo via a reader tip

You can read more about other friends of President Moon that were given so called advisors jobs and received illegal monthly payments. Apparently the Blue House is very upset with the new BAI Chairman Choe Jae-hyeong, for uncovering this scheme:

The audit report was announced amid escalated tensions between BAI Chairman Choe Jae-hyeong and the administration.   

After Choe took office in 2018, the practice of going easy on the Blue House ended. For the first time in 15 years, the BAI conducted aggressive audits on the Blue House. Eight audits were conducted in 2018 and seven in 2017.   

In recent months, the BAI went further and conducted audits on four presidential committees for the first time since Moon took office.    
   
The BAI’s report also said the Blue House had violated the law governing contracts involving the government when it created a video clip to celebrate Children’s Day in May. The BAI said the Blue House paid a subcontractor 50 million won without following proper legal procedures.   

Joong Ang Ilbo

At the link you can read how the Blue House is upset with Choe for not ruling favorably on nuclear project; they then were pressuring him to step down. When he wouldn’t they then tried to get a ruling party confidant appointed to the BAI board which Choe refused. Choe said he wants a neutral candidate to fill the opening. The audit of the Blue House is believed to be Choe’s counterattack against the ruling party’s attempts to remove him.

It will be interesting to see if anything happens to all these people that received illegal government payments. It seems at a minimum they should have to pay it all back.