Moon approves land minister's appointment amid opposition protests

Rep. Jin Sun-mee, the chairwoman of the National Assembly's Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, passes a confirmation report on Land Minister nominee Byeon Chang-heum during a committee meeting, Monday. Yonhap

President Moon Jae-in on Monday formally appointed his pick to lead Korea's housing policy amid fierce protests from the main opposition party.

Byeon Chang-heum, the former chief of the state-run housing developer Korea Land Housing Corp., will assume the top post of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport on Tuesday.

The move came just hours after the parliamentary Land, Infrastructure and Transport Committee, where the ruling Democratic Party (DP) holds a majority, passed a report on Byeon's recent parliamentary confirmation hearing in a 17-0 vote during its plenary meeting.

Lawmakers of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) who belong to the committee, however, boycotted the voting and protested the DP-led passage of the confirmation hearing report.

Byeon was tapped earlier this month to replace Land Minister Kim Hyun-mee, amid a public backlash against the government's failure to curb soaring housing prices in the past three years.

The government's measures backfired and led to a spike in home prices amid low rates and ample liquidity in the market.

Apartment prices in the capital city of Seoul jumped an average of 16.32 percent from June 2017 to November this year despite the measures, according to the Korea Appraisal Board.

The main opposition had denounced Byeon as unfit for the ministerial post and called for his nomination to be withdrawn, citing his past controversial remarks and alleged misdeeds.

In Korea, the parliamentary confirmation hearing is widely seen as a formality because his appointment does not require approval from the National Assembly.

The prime minister is the only Cabinet post that requires parliamentary confirmation.

At the center of the criticism are remarks Byeon made as the then CEO of Seoul Housing Communities Corp. (SH) about a 19-year-old service engineer who was killed while repairing a screen door at the subway platform of Guui Station in Seoul in 2016.

Byeon was found to have said during a company meeting after the accident that if the man had paid a little bit of attention, nothing would have happened.

The remarks drew a huge backlash against Byeon for passing the blame for an apparent industrial accident caused by lack of due safety measures onto an individual worker. Opposition lawmakers also lambasted the nominee for what they called a lack of respect for human dignity and life.

Byeon is also facing other allegations raised by opposition lawmakers, including suspicions of hiring several close alumni from his alma mater, Seoul National University, for senior SH posts in the past. (Yonhap)