Translated by SOORIN KIM(voluntarily activist)
The Political funds, obviously, shall only be used for political activities, not for personal expenses or wrongful purposes. However, the money has long been misused such as being treated as ‘pocket money’ for politicians. The CFOI (Center for Freedom of Information), last year, disclosed some dubious gas charge expenditures by analyzing congressmen Chung Byung Gug’s political funds spending. And then we suggested that you too use the Freedom of Information System to keep an eye on your own local congressmen.
CFOI requested the revenue and expenditure reports of political funds for the Grand National Party (GNP) and the Democratic Party. The National Election Commission (NEC) released the data to CFOI, and we especially analyzed the expenses for ‘organization activities’ with spreadsheet. Today, we would like to share the details of the GNP’s ‘organization activity’ spending. The GNP’s activity expenses were over 10 billion won a year. Looking into the data, we could find some interesting parts.
One of the several interesting things CFOI found out was that the staff members of the GNP HQ had spend huge amount of money at ‘Sokcho Seafood Stew’ restaurant. Searching through the data set with the key word ‘Sokcho Seafood Stew’, CFOI even found one expenditure that was over 8 million won at the restaurant. CFOI found out that they spent over 99 million won under the name of ‘Sokcho Seafood Stew’ in 2010. We find it very odd for a party to spend such an enormous amount of money at a single restaurant.
yr-m-d usage receiver amount 2010-01-12 Party executive food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 8,280,000 2010-02-11 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 8,004,000 2010-03-15 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 7,857,000 2010-04-09 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 9,402,000 2010-05-13 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 8,760,000 2010-05-26 Spokesperson food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 210,000 2010-06-02 Secretary general food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 257,000 2010-06-02 Spokesperson food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 39,000 2010-06-09 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 8,880,000 2010/7/9 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 7,473,000 2010/8/5 Party executives food expenses Sokcho 8,079,000 2010/9/7 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 7,293,000 2010/10/8 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 7,014,000 2010/10/27 Party headquarter food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 1,500,000 2010/11/5 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 8,166,000 2010/11/9 Spokesperson food expenses Sokcho Seafood 100,000 2010/12/13 Party executives food expenses Sokcho Seafood etc. 8,100,000
Another thing was the operation expense from majority leader’s office. About 800,000 won was mysteriously spent at a movie theater, CGV.
|
2010-02-07 |
Headquarters operating expenses |
CGV Yeongdeungpo |
574,000 |
|
2010-02-07 |
Headquarters operating expenses |
CGV Yeongdeungpo |
245,000 |
Not only that, CFOI found out that the office of GNP’s secretary general had bought office equipment at a luxury department store. Since the items they purchased were not specified, we don’t know exactly what they bought from the department but it makes us wonder if they really had to buy room equipment at a luxury store. Apart from these, it indeed was weird and even fishy that the party had spent too much money on dining in expensive hotels andtoo much money making placards or New Year’s Cards.
|
2010-02-05 |
Security Generals office material | Shinsegae Dept. Store |
1,500,000 |
Of course, they can enjoy feasts at hotels, watch movies, or spend enormous amounts of money hanging out with their supporters or party officials, but with their own money, not political funds from citizens. But we just wish that politicians would spend more prudently the money contributed by the citizens for better politics.
original version of this post