Bribery Scandals Mar Incheon Economic Zone
By Kim Tae-jong
Staff Reporter
The Incheon Free Economic Zone (IFEZ), west of Seoul, was designated to attract inbound investment as a financial, logistical and business hub in Northeast Asia, but it seems the zone has rather become a center for bribery.
An ongoing investigation has found illegal connections involving many eminent public servants and employees from construction companies, police said Monday.
The police Monday sought an arrest warrant for a former administration official of the IFEZ, Seo, and indicted two co-presidents of a construction company for the charge of bribery.
Along with the three, police also indicted 32 former and eminent public servants and employees from other construction companies without physical detention for the same charge.
Seo allegedly received a bribe worth 100 million won including a 40 million won car from several companies. In return, he helped them with advantages in bids for contracts for a facility construction in the zone worth 20 billion won, and the selection of a supervising company.
To bribe the government officials, one of the companies named a head of a branch office of a bank as an executive and had her help them raise a slush fund of 1 billion won for bribery through the manipulation of accounting books and the issuance of fake tax bills.
The public servants involved in the allegations made changes in the terms and conditions for bids in favor to those who gave them bribes and evaluated their proposals much higher.
One of the allegations also involved a former high-ranking official, Ahn. Although he was fired for bribery, he used his connections with eminent officials.
The police said most of the people involved in the bribery allegations admitted their involvement and plan to launch further investigations as there is evidence suggesting more public servants are involved in other bribery scandals in the IFEZ.
The government designated Incheon as a free economic zone in August 2003 along with Busan-Jinhae and Gwangyang. But progress has been slow in the development of the three FEZs.