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Lawmakers allow pork-barrel legislation on their property

Lawmakers allow pork-barrel legislation on their property

Posted April. 07, 2015 06:54,   

한국어

"Maengi" in Korean refers to literally “blinded (locked) property” or land that has low value because it is not adjacent to roads. As it is not connected to roads, a house or a building cannot be built on it and its market value is less than half of the value of other land near roads. There are people who magically turn the locked property into expensive land: lawmakers.

Lawmakers who should deliberate the nation’s budget are allocating the budget for the sake of their own interest – to make roads beside the land that they own. It is like setting the wolf to guard the sheep. Rep. Kang Gil-bu (Ulju, Ulsan) attracted 28 billion won (25.8 million U.S. dollars) in budget to build another access road to the industrial complex near Ulju County, and his land was near the new access road. After the road was constructed, the value of his land soared eight-fold from around 52 million won (47,930 dollars) to 400 million won (368,700 dollars) in a decade. If this is the tip of the iceberg, there would be much more cases where lawmakers allowed the construction of roads at the request of influential landowners.

There are many lawmakers who try to make money from real estate, such as a lawmaker who attracted a budget to increase the interchange connected to the university where he serves as the chairman of the board and a lawmaker who puts pressure to develop the region where his officetel is located. The Public Service Ethics Act says, “The state and local governments shall strive over the prevention of conflict of interests in the performance of duties of public officials in relation with their property interests, so as not to cause any difficult situation in their fair performance of duties.” However, this does not seem to apply to lawmakers.

Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo whose mother and father in-laws bought locked property in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province, and turned it into Korea’s Beverly Hills. He said in the confirmation hearing, “I happened to go there as my fellow lawmaker introduced it to me.” As Lee, the then local lawmaker of South Chungcheong Province, went to Gyeonggi Province, lawmakers seem to have a significant interest in real estate. Every year, lawmakers request an extra budget of around 3 trillion won (2.7 billion dollars) for their constituency during the budget bill review process. Part of the requests could be made for regional development but it is likely that they reflect lawmakers’ personal interests. The list of lawmakers who pursued personal interest under the mask of public interest must be released even if it involves combing through entire lawmakers and prevention measures must be created.