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Anyang officials toured on luxury cruise days after ferry disaster
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By Ko Dong-hwan
By Ko Dong-hwan
Municipal authorities at Anyang are taking heat for taking off on a cruise trip while the local community struggled to deal with the recent ferry disaster.
The Sewol ferry sank off the waters of the southwestern island on April 16 with 476 people aboard, including hundreds of students from Anyang’s Danwon High School who had been traveling to Jeju on a field trip. Only 172 of the passengers were rescued with the remainder confirmed as dead or missing.
Three days later, eight senior civil servants of Anyang’s municipal government boarded a luxury cruise ship to travel along the coasts of Hong Kong, China and Vietnam.
The six-day travel came to light only after a former Anyang City employee brought it up through a one-person rally in front of the Anyang City Hall.
Through her protest, the woman, a former director of the municipal government’s community relations department, criticized city officials for taking the trip at a distressing time for the community and also accused the city government of trying to cover it up.
Anyang City downplayed the incident, saying that the eight had planned the trip before the ferry disaster and would have had to pay heavy cancelation fees if they didn’t go. All of the eight paid their own money for the trip, the city government said.
``The woman worked as a senior-level official before being forced to step down for embezzling money. She had been asking to get her job back,’’ the city government said.