The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) said Friday that it plans to ask prosecutors for a criminal investigation into Gwangju City Mayor Kang Un-tae for allegedly fabricating documents to win the 2019 World Swimming Championships.
To win the biennial International Swimming Federation or FINA event, the city situated around 350 kilometers south of Seoul allegedly forged signatures of former prime minister and culture minister as part of the government’s financial guarantees.
“When the FINA inspection team visited Korea this April, we reviewed the documents submitted by Gwangju last October to learn that the two signatures were forged,” an MCST official said.
“We will file a complaint into Gwangju’s action, which we thinks amounts to a clear forgery of official documents.”
While making an official bid last October, Gwangju was requested to present letters of then Prime Minister Kim Hwang-sik and Culture Minister Choi Kwang-shik.
The city obviously made up their signatures on its own and used them, a felony that may be punishable for up to 10 years in imprisonment.
In the letter, the government will offer 73.9 billion won for the city to organize the global swimming festival.
In response, Gwangju City said that after finding the mistakes of its rank-and-file staff, it deleted the amount when it tendered the intermediate offer this April and the final one two months later.
Gwangju is a major city located inside South Jeolla Province that is saddled with growing debts from the hosting of an international motor sport competition.
Since 2010, South Jeolla Province also recorded some 170 billion won in deficits by hosting the F1 Formula Grand Prix for three years and it is expected to face losses in 2013, too.
“Some chiefs of regional governments just try to host as many global events as they can without checking their financial status or commercial viability of such acts,” said a professor in a Seoul university.
“Then, they tend to ask supports of the central government. They seek their prides at the expenses of taxpayers’ money. There are so many examples.”
In 2007, Incheon hosted the 17th Asian Games to be held midway through next year. Back then, it promised to construct the main stadium with its own budget but now it is asking the central government to provide a 30 percent of the costs.
In addition, it demands that the central government cover 70 percent of overall costs instead of the past rule of 30 percent.