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Executives of the Korea Securities Depository spent W848 million (US$1=W990) at massage parlors, nightclubs and golf courses with their corporate credit cards between 2005 and 2007, the Board of Audit and Inspection revealed Monday. The government watchdog was unveiling a preliminary report on 31 public corporations.
The BAI said KSD executives spent lavishly on entertainment with their corporate credit cards even though they had no reason to work outside the office. The officials bought golden keys with corporate credit cards as souvenirs for their retiring colleagues, and spent some W97 million on meetings of their board of directors at golf clubs or tourist resorts when they could have held them at the office.
The Korea Racing Association, meanwhile, paid between W180,000 and W360,000 overtime to every staffer every month since 2001, though none actually worked overtime. Since November 2004, the KRA paid them another W90,000 to W150,000 more every month as "extra allowances." The watchdog estimates that a total of W23.4 billion was dissipated that way over the past seven years.
The Industrial Bank of Korea was also generous with overtime, paying out on four occasions since December 2005 a total of W35 billion among executives and staff. The Korea Land Corporation illegally raised a generous "welfare fund" and distributed it to staff in the form of allowances.
There were other irregularities. The Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation manipulated the results of recruitment tests in 2005 and 2007 to employ applicants who failed it. In one case, it hired an applicant, who ranked 666th in the recruitment test by forging his test results to bump him up to 45th. "At their superiors' request, the corporation's personnel management officers employed an unsuccessful applicant whose test score was 26 points, by giving him 72 points after forging his test results,Ħħ a BAI official said.
The Korea Coal Corporation in 2007 hired 10 unsuccessful applicants in return for favors. And the Korea Expressway Corporation, the BAI said, under the pretext of management efficiency awarded retired staff the management of 175 highway tollgates out of 185 it put to public tender.
As of the end of 2006, the debts of 24 public corporations subject to auditing, except seven financial institutions, stood at W119 trillion, up more than 60 percent from the W74 trillion of late 2002, the BAI said. The watchdog has therefore decided to increase the number of public corporations subject to audits to 101.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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