Audit determines Moon administration manipulated housing statistics

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Audit determines Moon administration manipulated housing statistics

Published: 17 Apr. 2025, 17:45

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

The Board of Audit and Inspection headquarters in Jongno District, central Seoul is seen on Dec. 2, 2024. [YONHAP]

The Blue House was found to have systematically manipulated key national statistics related to housing, income and employment for several years during former President Moon Jae-in's administration, according to an audit by the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) announced Thursday.

According to BAI, it had finalized its audit results on the compilation and use of major national statistics, which was initially released as an interim report in September 2023, during an audit committee on April 10.

The BAI concluded that from January 2018 to October 2021, the Blue House and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport instructed the Korea Real Estate Board (REB) to lower housing price growth rates on 102 occasions or to distort statistics to make real estate policies appear effective.

The BAI audit also found that the Blue House and the Land Ministry also violated the Statistics Act by ordering advance access to housing statistics, rejecting REB’s requests to stop data sharing 12 times.

The Blue House requested that interim and preliminary housing price data be reported before the official figures were released, ordering a “weekly value” and “mid-week value” to be reported before a final value of the housing price fluctuation rate to obtain an early preview of the final statistics, according to the BAI.

More critically, the BAI found that the Blue House and Land Ministry not only received the data early, but also pressured REB to manipulate the figures.

In the first half of 2019, when Seoul’s housing market showed signs of price increases, the Blue House and Land Ministry demanded lower figures from REB and reportedly applied pressure by mentioning budget cuts and personnel reshuffling.

An apartment complex in Seoul is seen on March 27. [YONHAP]

On July 13, 2020, just after the July 10 real estate policy announcement, when the preliminary growth rate was reported at 0.12 percent — up from 0.11 percent the previous week — the Blue House reprimanded the Land Ministry by phone, asking, “What on earth is the ministry doing?”

The Land Ministry then ordered REB to reflect the policy effects in the growth rate and keep the number in the single decimal range, 0.09 percent or lower. REB subsequently adjusted sample housing prices 149 times to lower the growth rate, ultimately revising the reported figure from 0.12 percent to 0.09 percent.

For example, the sample price of the Banpo Xi Apartments in Seocho District, southern Seoul was lowered from 3.17 billion won ($2.23 million) to 3.14 billion won, a decrease of 30 million won.

Article 27-2 of the Statistics Act states that “statistics being compiled or completed statistics shall not be provided or leaked to external parties before publication without just cause.”

The BAI determined that there was manipulation not only in the housing sector but also in household income and income inequality-related statistics.

The Board of Audit and Inspection headquarters in Jongno District, central Seoul is seen on Dec. 2, 2024. [YONHAP]

When preliminary data for the second, third, and fourth quarters of 2017 showed a year-on-year decline in household income, Statistics Korea arbitrarily applied weighted values to reverse the decline.

In the first quarter of 2018, when income inequality, as measured by the income quintile ratio, reached a record high, the agency modified the criteria for applying weighted values to adjust the figures.

In total, the BAI has requested disciplinary action or personnel record updates for 31 individuals from the Moon administration, including officials from the Blue House, Land Ministry, REB and Statistics Korea.

The BAI noted that it did not request action for some key individuals as they had already been referred to prosecutors and that further action was deemed unnecessary in those cases due to the limited practical benefit of administrative notifications.

In its September 2023 interim report, the BAI had already referred 22 people — including former Blue House policy chiefs Jang Ha-sung, Kim Soo-hyun, Kim Sang-jo and Lee Ho-seung — to the prosecution on charges such as abuse of power, obstruction of official duties and violations of the Statistics Act.

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

BY BAE JAE-SUNG [[email protected]]