All over for defense chief nominee

The ruling Saenuri Party has apparently turned its back on Defense Minister-nominee Kim Byung-kwan in the wake of fresh allegations that the retired four-star general lied about his stock assets. Kim was recently found to have failed to report his holdings of 30 million won (26,906 U.S. dollars) in shares of Korea Myanmar Development, an overseas resources developer suspected of receiving preferential treatment under the previous administration. He had been under mounting pressure to withdraw his nomination due to questions over his personal and professional life, including alleged tax evasion and his career at an arms contractor.

Kim purchased 750 shares of the company in May 2011 for 40,000 won (35.87 dollars) each and an additional 100 later in the same year after the company offered new shares. But he failed to report the investment to the National Assembly for his confirmation hearing. He said, "Documents (on his shares) were omitted because I had to prepare so much information in a short period of time. The shares are of little value now.” Despite this explanation, it is hard to understand why he failed to report his own shares in the company when he reported all of his wife’s.

Kim and the company`s chairman Lee Young-soo seem close. In January 2011, four months before Kim purchased the stocks, he participated with Lee in an event marking the company`s signing of a deal with Myanmar to develop oil fields in the Southeast Asian country. At the time, the company was rumored to be backed by an influential man from the administration. Kim also served as an adviser to an organization that Lee founded to support President Park Geun-hye in her presidential campaign. Also, Kim was an adviser to the World X-Impact Federation, of which Lee was the president. How suspicious that Kim omitted by mistake the truth about his shareholdings in Lee’s company. Kim is known to have been afraid that had he reported the shares, controversy would ensue over his relationship with Lee and thus put him at a disadvantage in his confirmation hearing.

Kim is under fire over scandals in real estate investment, his career at an arms dealer after the discharge from the military, and golfing the day after North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean naval vessel in 2010. And now he is suspected of lying. Considering that some from the presidential office and the ruling party call him “burdensome,” he must decide what to do about his nomination.