Stop civic groups from embezzling subsidies

Lee Kwan-sup, senior presidential secretary for policy and planning, has delivered shocking results of an inspection of how government subsidies have been spent. The revelation shows the greed of civic groups that degenerated into embezzlement monsters. They used all conceivable methods, such as taking rebates from related parties, illegitimate taking and personal use of the money, as well as fabricating documents. Such fraudulent practices were prevalent across the board, according to the findings of the Yoon Suk Yeol administration.

In a probe into their use of 6.8 trillion won ($5.2 billion) for the past three years, as many as 1,865 cases involved illegal spending. Of the money, 1.1 trillion won was used for wrong purposes, while 31.4 million won was embezzled. The Board of Audit and Inspection’s earlier probe of ten civic groups for six months from last August — which led to the indictment of 73 members of them after evidence pointed to their embezzling of 1.74 billion won — was just the tip of the iceberg.

The latest inspection even found that a unification activist group had used 62.6 million won in subsidy to allow a lecturer to “look into the Yoon Suk Yeol administration’s mistakes in its first 100 days,” not to mention handing out money three times the limit to the unqualified lecturer. The head of a board of directors for a social-themed cooperative has disappeared after spending 10 million won it received for start-up assistance in 2022. A federation took 13.44 million won for its three overseas trips last year, but two of them were a senior officer’s personal travels, while the remaining trip was a bogus one.

That’s not all. The head of a child care center manipulated group photos or dates in placards to pocket the subsidy. As the inspection excluded a number of cases calling for less than 30 million won in subsidy, embezzlement must be more widespread than expected.

The subsidy for civilian organizations rose sharply under the Moon Jae-in administration. It provided more than 22 trillion won during its five-year term. But the liberal government didn’t care how the money was spent. The Yoon administration must devise a fundamental solution to prevent them from squandering subsidies before it’s too late.

The government has decided to verify the use of subsidies. But that’s not enough. It must make it obligatory for civic groups to present electronic data on their spending, retrieve their subsidy if embezzlement was discovered and raise the reward for whistleblowers. Such a type of corruption can’t be tolerated.