Excessive privilege for Bank of Korea officials?

Seen above is the Bank of Korea Money Museum in central Seoul. Yonhap

By Lee Min-hyung

The Bank of Korea (BOK) owns 60 residential properties nationwide for its economists to live in, while failing to properly manage some vacant facilities, a ruling party lawmaker said Thursday.

The special treatment for its employees is very exceptional in that most other state-run lenders and financial authorities do not offer such an “excessive” residential benefit, according to Rep. Hong Ik-pyo of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea.

The BOK owns a total of six residential properties in the nation's southeastern port city of Busan, but four out of them remain vacant, Hong said, citing data from the central bank. One apartment in Pohang is also empty.

The lawmaker took issue with the BOK's lax management of the properties, and urged the central bank to sell them immediately and make lease arrangements for its officials.

“The excessive residential welfare that the BOK offers to its officials receiving relatively high annual income is contrary to the public's mounting burden over paying housing fees here,” Hong said.

The central bank is one of the top financial authorities here along with the Financial Supervisory Service (FSC) and the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank). But those two do not offer such housing perks for their employees.

The FSC offers leased studio apartments for its employees working in other regions. Eximbank also provides housing to its employees via a leasing system.

On top of that, BOK officials could reside in residential properties in Yongsan in central Seoul, almost for free. They can use the residence for a monthly maintenance cost of around 40,000 won to 70,000 won. But it costs around 650,000 won in monthly rent for a studio apartment in the area. Hong argued it is an excessive privilege enjoyed only by the central bank at a time when BOK officials' salaries stand in the top level among the nation's financial authorities here. BOK employees' average annual income amounted to 99 million won as of 2019, according to data by ALIO, a government-operated internet portal providing data in the public sector.

The lawmaker also pointed out that the central bank has gone on a buying spree of residential properties even when it reported losses of 4.2 trillion won between 2004 and 2007 during which period the BOK purchased seven properties worth 23 billion won in Seoul and major metropolitan cities across the nation.

Rep. Kim Tae-heum of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) also criticized the central bank for its lax budget management, as the BOK has to pay 88.4 billion won for renting its head office in central Seoul due to a delay in rebuilding its headquarters.

The BOK has spent 283.1 billion won for the construction which is set to be finished by the first half of 2022.

Kim raised concerns over the BOK's failure to properly manage its budget by spending a third of the construction costs on rent before its relocation.

The construction of the BOK headquarters was scheduled to kick off in the first half of 2018, but was delayed to December 2019 due to a legal dispute surrounding its construction firms.

The BOK has to foot 20 months of rent at a cost of 26 billion won because of the construction delay, according to Kim.

“Disputes over the construction continue to surface,” Kim said. “The construction should be carried out as early as possible, so that the central bank can stop paying rent.”

The BOK is in internal review over the possibility of taking legal action to seek compensation for the delay in the construction of the new office.