By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter

The main opposition Democratic Party (DP) is seeking a full-fledged National Assembly investigation into the revelation that 40,000 public employees and 6,000 public company workers pocketed state subsidies planned for rice producers last year.

A sweeping shakeup may hit the officialdom as the ruling and opposition parties have pledged strong action to discipline the ``corrupt'' officials, while the Lee Myung-bak administration is moving quickly to clarify the allegations.

The controversy grew Wednesday when two incumbent lawmakers of the governing Grand National Party (GNP), Kim Sung-hoi and Kim Hak-yong, were found to have taken the rice subsidy, even though they were not eligible. Reports show there could be more lawmakers who abused the flawed subsidy system to take illegal gains.

The government has provided a subsidy to small-income rice producers since the government opened the rice market wider in 2005 in line with international trade agreements. The owners of rice paddies can receive the subsidy only when they actually produce rice, otherwise the money should be given to tenant farmers who actually grow the rice.

According to the Board of Audit and Inspection, 170,000 of the 998,000 people who received the subsidies in 2006 were not farmers. Of them, about 40,000 were listed as civil servants, while 6,200 others were employees of public corporations.

Non-farmers received 168.3 billion won ($135.7 million) in 2006, more than 10 percent of the total rice subsidy of 1.62 trillion won given that year.

President Lee faces growing calls to dismiss Lee Bong-hwa, vice minister of health, welfare and family affairs, one of the high-ranking officials implicated in the scandal. President Lee has often vowed to establish the rule of law and deal strictly with corrupt officials.

``Lee instructed government offices to look into all suspicions about the rice subsidies in a prompt and strict manner,'' Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said. ``An initial investigation showed there are no ministers or presidential secretaries who had taken, or applied for the subsidy.''

The case is now snowballing into political warfare. The DP claimed many senior officials of the Lee administration violated the law by taking the subsidy, while the governing GNP said former President Roh Moo-hyun is first to blame as the faulty subsidy system began under his administration.

``We will seek a parliamentary investigation to unearth the subsidy case. The GNP should cooperate with us to root out corruption in officialdom,'' DP spokesman Rep. Choi Jae-seong said. ``We again urge President Lee to sack his vice health minister immediately. The government should also make public the names of all officials who took the subsidies.''

``The officials who violated the law should be held responsible,'' GNP floor leader Rep. Hong Joon-pyo said. ``However, it is unfair to blame only the current administration as the subsidy system began under Roh. We should check how many senior government officials under Roh misused the system to get the subsidy.''

jj@koreatimes.co.kr