The Board of Audit and Inspection announced on the 27th the findings of a task force set up to follow up on a parliamentary investigation, concluding that coercion and fabrication took place during audits into alleged statistics manipulation under the Moon Jae-in administration and the killing of a South Korean fisheries official in the Yellow Sea. The task force said abuse of audit authority was widespread, citing coercive questioning, unlawful digital forensics and the improper handover of materials to investigative agencies. It said it had referred its findings on 10 officials, including former Audit Chairman Choe Jae-hae and Audit Commissioner Yoo Byung-ho, who were in the chain of command at the time, to the National Office of Investigation. It also called for heavy disciplinary action, including dismissal, against 10 staff members involved.
In April last year, the audit board released a report concluding that the Moon administration had manipulated and distorted statistics on housing, income and employment throughout its five-year term. Earlier, it had concluded that the Moon administration covered up and distorted the facts of the 2020 killing of the fisheries official in the Yellow Sea by describing it as a voluntary defection to North Korea. Yet barely a year later, the same agency has found serious abuses of audit authority, including evidence fabrication and violations of personal information.
If there were problems with the audit process, correcting them is right. But it is not normal for each new administration to disavow audit findings that the agency itself produced under the previous government. The audit board has offered different interpretations and judgments depending on who held power on politically sensitive cases — the four-river restoration project under Lee Myung-bak, the Sewol ferry disaster and blacklist cases under Park Geun-hye, and the early shutdown of the Wolsong nuclear reactor under Moon. That is why critics scoff that the agency has been reduced to a subcontractor for whichever administration is in power, carrying out political retaliation while looking over its shoulder at those in office. Some staff members pushed back against the task force announcement, saying, "It was the task force that accessed the mobile phone data of those under audit without due process and distorted the facts."
Audit Chairman Kim Ho-chul stressed in his inaugural address early this year that he would "firmly establish the audit board's independence and political neutrality." The board reports to the president but is a constitutional body in its own right. The Board of Audit and Inspection Act stipulates that it holds an independent status in performing its duties — a provision meant to ensure that audits follow conviction rather than the pull of political power. If the agency keeps reversing its own audits, the public cannot help but question why it exists at all. Fundamental institutional reform is needed to safeguard the agency's fairness and independence.
