hankyoreh

the spokesperson of the ruling Grand National Party

Within less than six months of its inauguration, the administration of President Lee Myung-bak is mired in a series of influence-peddling corruption scandals.

Amid a widening investigation into allegations that Kim Ok-hee, the 74-year-old female cousin of President Lee’s wife, accepted bribes after promising to influence the nomination of candidates for parliamentary elections in April, another bribery case was unearthed. Yoo Han-yeol, 70, a former five-term lawmaker and now a standing adviser with the ruling Grand National Party, allegedly took huge bribes in return for lobbing the Ministry of Defense on behalf of a company that wanted to become a parts supplier for the ministry in its construction of a broadband Internet network.

Critics say the graft scandals clearly show a lapse in morality among ruling party politicians. In July, Seoul Metropolitan Council President Kim Gui-hwan, who is also a GNP member, was arrested following allegations that he had bribed approximately 30 council members in order to be elected.

On August 10, the Seoul Central District Office asked a court to issue a warrant to arrest Yoo on a bribery charge. Yoo is suspected of having received several hundreds of millions of won from an electronics company owner, who is only identified by the surname Lee and whose company is only identified as “D.” The case is likely to ripple throughout the ruling party as several presidential advisers and senior GNP lawmakers, including the senior presidential secretary for political affairs, Maeng Hyung-kyu, and Rep. Gong Sung-jin, a member of the GNP’s supreme committee, are reported to be involved.

Yoo is accused of having received a total of 600 million won (US$580,000) from the electronics company owner at a meeting in last January. The meeting was arranged by a man, who is identified by the surname Han and who worked on Lee Myung-bak’s 2007 presidential campaign.

At the time, Yoo also demanded that Lee, the electronics company owner, pay five percent of the contract value in commission if and when the company was selected as the ministry’s supplier. Yoo also told the electronics company owner that he would give the money to Maeng, the presidential secretary, as a bribe and he then attempted to meet Maeng to hand the money over. In addition, Rep. Gong, who was a member of the National Assembly’s defense committee at the time, is alleged to have queried the Defense Ministry about how a supplier for the project would be selected after a meeting with Yoo.

However, when the company failed to win the supply bid, Lee, the company owner, demanded that Han return the money. Han did not, saying they were trying to win the contract again with the help of some Cheong Wa Dae officials, according to prosecutors.

A former policy adviser to President Lee who is only identified by the surname Kim was also alleged to have been involved in the case.

Maeng asked prosecutors to investigate the case on August 7, after a journalist with a weekly current affairs magazine asked him about the case.

“In late January, Yoo met with me and asked me to use my influence to help electronics company win the supply contract, but I rejected his request, saying that it should be done using normal procedures,” Maeng said. “Although I met him, I was not involved (in lobbying) at all,” he said. “I asked prosecutors to conduct a thorough investigation into the case after telling them as much as I know about it.”

In a telephone interview with The Hankyoreh, Rep. Gong said, “Yoo told me that the Defense Ministry did not accept his offer for new technology at a lower price. So I telephoned the vice defense minister (Kim Jong-cheon) and ordered my advisers to confirm what the truth was. It was a customary step taken to resolve a complaint.”

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]