‘Unfairly executed’ solar power programs found

It was found that roughly 260 billion won of the electric power industry funds (electric funds) invested by the Moon Jae-in administration for solar power programs were unfairly executed. Cases of inflating construction costs by issuing false tax invoices or building fake cultivation facilities to take out loans have come to light.

The anti-corruption promotion team under the Office for Government Policy Coordination announced on Tuesday that a joint inspection of the electric fund programs from September last year to August this year led to uncovering 2,267 cases of illegality and injustice. This results from a sample survey of only 12 out of 226 local governments nationwide. The illegal cases found this time accounted for 261.6 billion won (12.5 percent) of the 2.1 trillion won subject to inspection. Electric funds are created by deducting 3.7 percent of the monthly electricity bill.

In particular, 17.3 percent (1,129 cases, 184.7 billion won) of 6,509 new and renewable energy support programs such as solar power were supported haphazardly. Cases of canceling the issuance of invoices after receiving a loan with an inflated tax invoice or contracting with an unregistered company were discovered. A fake mushroom cultivation facility or an insect breeding facility was built to get a loan, as a cultivation facility was required for installing solar power panels on farmland.

“I think that many cases of poor and illegal execution have been found because the renewable energy policy was pushed hard without much time to prepare for program plans,” said Bahng Moon-gyu, head of the Office for Government Policy Coordination. The government plans to investigate the cases that have come to light and expand the investigation nationwide.


Hye-Ryung Choi herstory@donga.com