Inter-party conflict disrupts hearing on public funds

Parliamentary hearings on managing the public funds used to help ailing companies hit a snag Wednesday due to disagreements between the ruling and opposition parties over the manner of questioning.

Members of the Grand National Party (GNP) insisted on a joint hearing after the Minister of Finance and Economy (MOFE) and the Financial Supervisory Commission chairman refused to attend the hearing. The Millennium Democratic Party and the United Liberal Democrats, on the other hand, wanted to divide the witnesses into two groups. The two sides thus failed to agree on opening the hearing, engaging instead in an endless war of words.

Meanwhile, GNP Reps. Lee Hahn-Koo, Lee Kang-Too and Jeon Jae-Hee charged the government with misappropriating upwards of 24 trillion won in public funds and joined to call to identify and punish those responsible.

They circulated a document claiming that 12.9 trillion won in public funds was unduly injected into four trust and financial companies, including Shinsegi and Hannam, despite the fact that investors were accountable for the insolvency of those firms.

According to the data they provided, the funds misused were: 1.8 trillion won to pay interest on bonds issued by institutions handling restructuring, such as the Asset Management Corp.; 1.5 trillion won to pay for deposit withdrawals from mutual savings associations; and 2.5 trillion won to bail out Korea Life Insurance. They also said that policy failures, including the aborted sell-off of Daewoo Motors, created additional demands of 11.6-13.6 trillion won.

To counter the charges, MOFE published a document arguing that the opposition party's claims were based on information already made public in a white paper and made reference to funds yet to be injected or those that don't fall under the category of public funds.

Yoon Young-Chan yyc11@donga.com