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The Unification Ministry on Wednesday decided to offer W70 million to support a goodwill bicycle race from Pyongyang to Nampo, that includes tours to the Juche Tower in Pyongyang, climbing Mt. Myohyang and golf tours in the North Korean capital (US$1=W927). In December last year, one South Korean group supporting North Korea fabricated documents pledging 12,000 pushcarts to North Korea and received around W240 million from the Seoul government.
From 2004 until last year, the South Korean government indirectly supported a North Korean entity called the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee with around W26 billion in loans. In March, South Korea¡¯s Unification Ministry wasted W3.6 billion by rushing to contract a ship to deliver heavy oil to North Korea before the North had even started acting on an agreement to scrap its nuclear weapons program. Late last year, an Uri Party lawmaker who came back from his visit to the North boasted that he had promised to build pig farms there at the cost of billions of won.
The money the South Korean government, progressive lawmakers and aid groups shell out, pledge or embezzle for North Korea all comes from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund. Uri Party lawmakers who visited Pyongyang on Wednesday made loud promises to build a grand canal, another Kaesong Industrial Complex and other large projects, relying on the trusty fund.
North Korea now thinks the fund belongs to it. North Korean negotiators reportedly hurl abuse at their South Korean counterparts whenever they sense even the slightest move by the South¡¯s lawmakers to reduce the size of the fund. It has now degenerated into a trove of easy money, illicit money and wasted money.
The Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund consists of public donations, government budget allotments, and public fund endowments, which must be repaid using tax money. The money that went into the cooperation fund last year was W1.2 trillion. The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) must monitor and inspect the management of the fund. But the BAI last month gave up an audit, saying that a mandatory audit for the Fund is not required since its operations are ¡°politically sophisticated in nature.¡± At a National Assembly hearing last year, the head of the BAI promised to look into several instances of the fund¡¯s usage but has now reneged on that pledge. Then again, how could the head of the BAI have the courage to scrutinize the books, when the president himself has said South Korea would benefit, even if it ¡°gives everything to North Korea.¡±
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