Democratic Party of Seoul City Council condemns non-attendance of administrative audit of political affairs line over 'Hangang Bus Suspicion'

On the 13th, members of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the Administrative Autonomy Committee of the Seoul Metropolitan Council, condemned the notification of Seoul City Acting 1st Vice Mayor Jeong Sang-hoon and Chief of Staff Song Gwang-nam of their failure to appear in the administrative audit in connection with the suspicion of corruption in the Han River Bus.

The lawmakers issued a statement urging them to withdraw their stance of non-appearance, attend the audit, and reveal why the request for an investigation into the Han River Bus was stopped.

According to lawmakers, the Seoul Metropolitan Government's Audit Committee wrote an investigation request in September of last year containing suspicions of bribery in the process of selecting a shipbuilding company for the Han River Bus.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government later requested an audit from the Board of Audit and Inspection, but the suspicion of bribery was not specified in the request, and lawmakers pointed out that it only requested the police to investigate after the suspicions were raised during a government audit last month.

In addition, at the National Assembly inspection, Acting Jeong responded to the effect that Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon took the lead in deciding on the audit request, but Mayor Oh explained that the decision was made after discussions with employees, and lawmakers wrote that the statements were conflicting.

They criticized, “We need to find out what role the mayor and the government affairs line played in the process of stopping the investigation request and deciding to request an audit, and whether there was a systematic attempt to conceal the destruction of the audit data,” adding, “Acting Director Jeong and Chief of Staff Song are key officials involved in this process.”