“Come up with concrete measures”
President Lee Jae-myung warned on the 6th that authorities must never leave the so-called wildfire cartel or illegal structures along rivers and in mountain valleys unchecked.
According to Yonhap News, at the 20th Cabinet meeting, which also served as an emergency economic review and was held at the Blue House under his chairmanship, the president cited media reports suggesting that failures in wildfire recovery stemmed from weak contractors—including paper companies—participating in bids and from a wildfire cartel that allowed those practices to continue.
He criticized the responsible agencies, including the Korea Forest Service, asking, \"Why do we only uncover these problems after media outlets or opposition lawmakers demand documents?\"
He added that administrative sanctions are ineffective when firms create new companies to carry out 'swarm' bidding. Criminal penalties, he said, often only result in front men being investigated and therefore have little deterrent effect. He urged officials to sharply increase bid bonds and to forfeit them when corruption—such as the use of paper companies—is discovered. \"Come up with concrete measures,\" he demanded.
He also asked whether ministries were effectively identifying and correcting abnormal practices. He had set a mid-June deadline to complete the review and instructed them to approach the task from different perspectives.
He went on to criticize illegal facilities in rivers and valleys.
Earlier, at a February Cabinet meeting, Interior and Safety Minister Yoon Ho-jung reported that a nationwide survey had identified 835 cases of illegal occupation. The president questioned that figure, saying, \"Do you really expect me to believe there are only 835 nationwide? When I checked in Gyeonggi Province, I found many more.\" He ordered a full re-investigation and directed officials to consider inspections and punishments for any suspected deliberate cover-ups.
When Minister Yoon said the number of illegal facilities uncovered to date exceeded 33,000, the president said that reporting the figure to him was meaningless and called for audits of unreported cases. \"If necessary, investigate them all as potential dereliction of duty,\" he emphasized.
