BAI to request prosecution probe of ex-top officials under Moon over alleged statistics tampering

▲ Former president, Moon Jae-in (R) is seen with Kim Sang-jo, the former presidential policy chief in this undated file photo. (Yonhap)

BAI-prosecution

BAI to request prosecution probe of ex-top officials under Moon over alleged statistics tampering

SEOUL, July 31 (Yonhap) -- The state auditor plans to request the prosecution investigate former top officials of the previous Moon Jae-in administration over suspicions they were involved in tampering with state statistics to make it look like the government was doing a good job, a source said Monday.

The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) believes that the presidential office under Moon interfered with major economic statistics, including jobs, real estate and employment, before they were released to the public, the source said.

Four officials the BAI plans to request an investigation for are three former presidential chiefs of staff for policy -- Jang Ha-sung, Kim Su-hyun and Kim Sang-jo -- and former Land Minister Kim Hyun-mi, according to the source.

The land ministry reportedly shared the contents and discussed when to announce major statistics, while some presidential officials requested that the statistics agency either add or remove certain data, according to the source.

The BAI has reportedly summoned a number of high-ranking officials from the previous administration, as well as former ministers and the ex-commissioner of Statistics Korea for questioning, but none have admitted to the wrongdoings.

Additionally, the state auditor also found officials from the land ministry to have excessively interfered in the compiling process of real estate statistics by removing "outliers," or data that bucks trends, in an attempt to make housing prices look lower than they actually were.

Last week, the BAI summoned former Land Minister Kim over suspected meddling with state statistics. She had came under fire in 2020 for saying housing prices rose 11 percent during the Moon administration, a figure far lower than what was complied by a local bank back then.

"Since (they) distorted real estate statistics announced every week little by little over a long period of time, after many years, it brought about puzzling statistics," the source said.

The source also claimed that the state auditor suspects such organized interference in state statistics continued for many years under President Moon.

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