"The nominee should withdraw and return the apartment"
Cheon Ha-ram, acting leader and floor leader of the Reform Party, said Thursday that Ministry of National Defense Minister Nominee Kang Shin-chul's explanation of allegations of fraudulent apartment subscriptions was "a false explanation."
Speaking at a press conference at the National Assembly that day, Cheon said, "I want to reveal that not only the nominee but his father, older brother, and aunt all systematically and deliberately carried out an operation to secure eviction-relocation slots. Four family members received four such slots, and Kang, his father and his brother each received a special allocation of a Seoul apartment as evictees."
According to Cheon, Kang kept his resident registration at a military apartment while serving with a frontline unit of the 7th Division in Hwacheon, Gangwon Province, in March 2008. During that time, he filed a resident registration for a vacant house in Cheonwang-dong, Guro-gu, Seoul. Seven months later, in October 2008, Guro-gu compensated and purchased the Cheonwang-dong house. Kang then received a special allocation of an apartment at Seocho Nature Hill in Seoul under the special allocation for evictees.
"The pre-sale price of that apartment was 520 million won ($388,000), and its current market price reaches 2.2 billion won," Cheon said. "That is a capital gain of 1.7 billion won, a return of 323 percent."
Kang reportedly explained that the military apartment in Hwacheon, where he had his resident registration, was merely a "temporary duty post." He said the Cheonwang-dong house was his sole "lifestyle base." He has also maintained that the discrepancy in his resident registration was caused by a soldier's relocation for official duty. He said this falls under an exception to the actual-residence requirement stipulated in the enforcement decree of the Land Compensation Act.
On this, Cheon said, "If he wanted to move his resident registration to his lifestyle base, he should have registered at Yangji Village in Bundang, where his spouse and children lived, not at the vacant house in Cheonwang-dong. There is no exception for official-duty relocation in the special allocation program for evictees."
He added, "Even setting aside his posting in Gangwon Province, Kang's actual lifestyle base at the time was Yangji Village in Bundang, Seongnam, not Cheonwang-dong in Seoul, so the exception for official-duty relocation would not have applied to Cheonwang-dong to begin with. Under USFKI 5200.08, filing a resident registration was mandatory to receive an eviction-relocation slot."
Cheon argued that Kang moved his registration to a location different from where he actually lived in order to receive the special allocation for evictees. "On paper alone, he became an evictee for 14 months, collected compensation money and two apartments in Gangnam, and then returned to his original address," Cheon said. "Timing the registration date, registering at a place he never lived, donating the house to another person and then buying it back for 300,000 won — all of this was a systematic and deliberate operation by the nominee and his family to secure eviction-relocation slots."
"There is no way Kang, who played a key role in the operation by faking his residence and splitting his household from his father's at precisely the right timing, could have been unaware of the whole scheme," Cheon said, and went on to say, "A system created to help evictees who lost their homes became a means of wealth-building for the nominee's family."
Cheon stressed the need for Kang to step down, urging him to "immediately return the apartment obtained as an evictee's share through fraudulent subscription."
mp1256@heraldcorp.com
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