Agency announces action plan following Board of Audit and Inspection findings, pledges to pursue all illegal activity
The Korea Forest Service said Monday it will pursue and eradicate the illegal lending and fraudulent use of forestry technical credentials that have recently come to light.
The agency plans to cross-verify data flagged by the Board of Audit and Inspection against records compiled by an ongoing joint government inspection team, take strict action against any confirmed violations and actively reform related regulations.
The Korea Forest Service is currently conducting a joint inspection of forestry business corporations with the Office for Government Policy Coordination's Joint Government Anti-Corruption Task Force. On July 15, the agency released interim findings, announcing that it had referred 78 companies and 165 individuals — confirmed to have violated rules on credential lending and duplicate employment — for investigation and initiated administrative proceedings including credential revocation, while identifying more than 900 forestry business corporations suspected of further violations.
The Board of Audit and Inspection's findings were based on an analysis of employment insurance enrollment records and earned-income tax filings. The audit identified forestry technicians who appeared unlikely to have been in regular full-time employment, as well as individuals deemed incapable of normal work — including deceased persons and those incarcerated in correctional facilities — as suspects in potential credential lending or theft.
The Korea Forest Service will use the audit board's list of 6,664 individuals flagged as suspected of irregular employment or credential lending, along with 184 additional suspects identified through other administrative data analysis, to cross-check records with the joint government inspection team. The agency plans to conduct intensive investigations through the end of August.
Technicians and companies confirmed to have engaged in illegal activity — including those who lent or borrowed credentials or registered corporations through fraudulent means — will face a zero-tolerance response: criminal referrals and other judicial measures alongside administrative sanctions such as credential and registration revocation.
In addition, the agency will establish clear and specific criteria for determining whether a technician is in regular full-time employment, making it easier to detect credential lending. It will also create a legal basis for collecting and processing unique identification information — including business registration numbers and resident registration numbers — when forestry corporations and technicians register or report changes, while revising relevant laws to enable automatic cross-referencing with employment insurance and other administrative databases. The agency's integrated forestry technology information management system will be upgraded to allow automated pre-verification.
Korea Forest Service Commissioner Park Eun-sik said the agency would "swiftly complete follow-up measures stemming from the Board of Audit and Inspection's findings and take the strongest action the law permits — including credential and registration revocation — wherever violations are confirmed." He added that the agency would "make every effort to establish market order by pursuing rigorous measures so that substandard and unlawful companies have no foothold in the market."
kwonhl@heraldcorp.com
