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Audit links Korean gov't to illegal financing of 2023 World Scout Jamboree campsite

Published: 11 Apr. 2025, 08:01 Updated: 11 Apr. 2025, 08:48

The Blue House [JOONGANG PHOTO]

The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) found evidence that the Blue House was involved in the Moon Jae-in administration’s illegal use of a farmland management fund to finance the reclamation of the 2023 World Scout Jamboree campsite in North Jeolla in 2017.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs initially concluded that it was illegal to use the fund for the project, according to the BAI report released Thursday. But the ministry reversed its position shortly after reporting to the Blue House.

“The farmland management fund is strictly designated for farmland development, so it cannot be used to reclaim the Jamboree site which was classified as tourism and leisure land,” the BAI inspection report said. “But this was done, and the fund was used to reclaim the site.”

The government selected the Saemangeum site for the World Scout Jamboree in July 2015. In December 2017, the Agriculture Ministry decided to use the fund for land reclamation, entrusting the Korea Rural Community Corporation to carry out the project.

By December 2022, the site had been reclaimed with 184.5 billion won ($126 million) from the fund.

The audit found that the ministry was fully aware that using the fund for the site could violate the law. The Farmland and Agricultural Community Corporation Act strictly limits the use of the fund to projects directly related to farmland redevelopment.

In March 2017, the ministry even concluded that using the fund for the Jamboree site would violate the law.

Puddles of water are pictured in various places at the camping site in Buan County, North Jeolla, where the 2023 World Scout Jamboree Saemangeum took place on Aug. 11, 2023, after Typhoon Kanun passed. [YONHAP]

However, after reporting to the Blue House in July 2017, the ministry reversed its position. The Office for Balanced National Development of the Blue House instructed the ministry to “review a plan to use the farmland management fund for the Saemangeum reclamation project,” according to the BAI audit.

The ministry reported back that “the fund could not be used for land classified as international cooperation or tourism and leisure zones” — including the Jamboree site — citing concerns of backlash from farmers.

Nevertheless, the Blue House ordered the ministry to “review again the plan to use the fund for state-led reclamation of Saemangeum,” the audit said.

The Agriculture Ministry staff and the director in charge of reporting to the Blue House stated in the BAI’s investigation that they “felt burdened by the request from the presidential office to visit and report on the use of the farmland management fund and the order to reexamine it.”

Eventually, five months later, the ministry decided to use the fund. In October 2017, the ministry temporarily changed the land designation of the Jamboree site from tourism and leisure to “reserved land” in the Saemangeum master plan — a move the BAI described as a legal loophole to justify using the fund.

That December, the Saemangeum committee approved the plan. Even then, the ministry commissioned a legal review from a law firm, which concluded that it was “difficult to see the reserved land as falling within the legal purpose of the fund.”

The BAI criticized the move, saying, “the land designation was temporarily changed from tourism and leisure to reserved land to ostensibly resolve the problem of illegal use of the fund, and after the reclamation, it was decided to revert the land back to tourism and leisure.”

The BAI issued a warning to North Jeolla regarding the matter.

However, the audit did not find direct evidence of coercion or unlawful orders from the Blue House.

But some observers argue that the government may have encouraged the misuse of the budget to force the jamboree to take place at the site.

There were other candidate sites within the Saemangeum area — such as Gogun Mountain Islands or the Agricultural Life Zone Section 5 — where reclamation had mostly been completed, meaning the site could have been changed if not for the illegal fund use.

Translated from the JoongAng Ilbo using generative AI and edited by Korea JoongAng Daily staff.

BY KIM GYU-TAE [[email protected]]