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Prosecutors are looking into allegations that more local builders colluded to clinch bids for the previous administration’s highly controversial project to refurbish the country’s four major rivers, officials said Thursday.
The administration of former President Lee Myung-bak carried out the 22.2 trillion won ($19.8 billion) project to refurbish the rivers, saying it would generate thousands of jobs, improve water supply and prevent floods. But critics have long accused the mega project of being a boondoggle that caused irreversible environmental damage.
A special investigative team within the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office is closely analyzing documents to verify claims that more construction firms colluded to win bids for a second-phase of the turnkey construction contract to build wastewater treatment facilities along the rivers, they said.
A turnkey construction contract is a type of construction contract in which one successful bidder is responsible for the entire project from planning to actual construction. Such contracts, however, have sometime been criticized for possibly creating leeway for collusion.
So far, prosecutors have been probing suspicions that major industry players, including Hyundai Construction & Engineering Co., GS Engineering & Construction and Daewoo Engineering & Construction, colluded to win bids to build the first-phase, which was to construct dams along the rivers.
“(The builders) participating in the second-phase of the turnkey contract are also to be investigated,” a prosecution official close to the investigations said, adding the prosecution has received the documents regarding the bidding process from firms and relevant government agencies.
The probe into the alleged rigging scheme has been picking up pace as the current government has vowed to conduct a thorough investigation into allegations surrounding the river restoration project.
Last month, President Park Geun-hye pledged to include opposition-recommended experts, if necessary, in a government-led investigation of the project. (Yonhap News)
The administration of former President Lee Myung-bak carried out the 22.2 trillion won ($19.8 billion) project to refurbish the rivers, saying it would generate thousands of jobs, improve water supply and prevent floods. But critics have long accused the mega project of being a boondoggle that caused irreversible environmental damage.
A special investigative team within the Seoul District Prosecutors’ Office is closely analyzing documents to verify claims that more construction firms colluded to win bids for a second-phase of the turnkey construction contract to build wastewater treatment facilities along the rivers, they said.
A turnkey construction contract is a type of construction contract in which one successful bidder is responsible for the entire project from planning to actual construction. Such contracts, however, have sometime been criticized for possibly creating leeway for collusion.
So far, prosecutors have been probing suspicions that major industry players, including Hyundai Construction & Engineering Co., GS Engineering & Construction and Daewoo Engineering & Construction, colluded to win bids to build the first-phase, which was to construct dams along the rivers.
“(The builders) participating in the second-phase of the turnkey contract are also to be investigated,” a prosecution official close to the investigations said, adding the prosecution has received the documents regarding the bidding process from firms and relevant government agencies.
The probe into the alleged rigging scheme has been picking up pace as the current government has vowed to conduct a thorough investigation into allegations surrounding the river restoration project.
Last month, President Park Geun-hye pledged to include opposition-recommended experts, if necessary, in a government-led investigation of the project. (Yonhap News)
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Articles by Korea Herald
