Investigators raided the home of Park Bum-hoon, former Chung-Ang University president, and several other places Friday on suspicions that he exerted influence on government officials to favor the university when he served as a top presidential aide.
The probe into Park, who served as the senior presidential secretary for education during the Lee Myung-bak administration, is part of the widening “all-out war” against corruption launched by the government of President Park Geun-hye earlier this month.
As it turns out, the anticorruption drive is being fought on all fronts ― from Park’s former foes to businesses and government officials. All anticorruption agencies ― the prosecution, police, the tax office and the audit agency ― are joining the operations in a concerted way.
The corruption fight has already netted POSCO, one of whose affiliates is suspected of operating huge slush funds and whose former chief was close to the Lee administration. Investigators are also intensifying their probe on the failed overseas resource development projects during the Lee administration and graft cases in defense procurement.
There may be some political purposes behind this harsh corruption busting ― like taking revenge against former rivals and taming big businesses and the civil service. Nevertheless, it is imperative that we deal sternly with all cases of corruption.
Seeing the anticorruption war unfold, however, we cannot but raise a fundamental question: Are our anticorruption warriors clean enough to fulfill their mission? Few would say yes.
The recent cases point to the sad reality that some of our anticorruption agencies are rotten to the core. Police raided six tax offices in Seoul and Gyeonggi in a corruption probe last week. Before that, four senior officials ― two from tax offices and two from the Board of Audit and Inspection ― were caught having sex bought for them by those who they are supposed to be checking up on.
The case of the BAI officials is outrageous. They had dinner with officials from the Korea Electric Power Corp. and its affiliate ― the bill for the meals and drinks for the four was 1.8 million won ― and went to a hotel with two women who work at the restaurant.
KEPCO and its affiliates are subject to audits of the BAI and it is not hard to understand why they provide such generous entertainment to BAI officials. What’s more comical is that the two officials belong to the audit agency’s internal audit team which has been expanded in the wake of previous graft cases.
It is not rare for BAI and tax officials to be implicated in graft or other corruption cases. But the recent cases should reawaken Park and her aides to the importance of cleaning up the powerful anticorruption officials first.
