Exclusive Suwon City Signed Tens of Billions of Won in Contracts with Environmental Equipment Company While City Official Served as Inside Director

It has been found that Suwon City conducted projects valued at approximately 4.76 billion won with an environmental equipment company at a time when a current senior official from the city's Environment Bureau was listed as an inside director of the company.

According to Suwon City and others on the 21st, the city has been implementing the "Wastewater Treatment Plant Odor Control Facility Installation Project" since 2013. The total project cost is 9.254 billion won based on fiscal disclosure standards as of 2016.

The project involves installing odor control units and odor control piping to reduce odors generated during the wastewater treatment process.

Environmental equipment company K Company has consecutively won bids related to this project in material purchase bids in 2013 and 2014.

In the "Wastewater Treatment Plant Odor Control Facility Installation Project Government-Supplied Materials (Miscellaneous Waste Storage Facility) Purchase" announced by the Incheon Regional Procurement Service under the Public Procurement Service in 2013, with the Suwon Environmental Services Division participating as the demand agency, K Company won the bid at 787 million won.

In the "Wastewater Treatment Plant Odor Control Facility Installation Project Odor Control Unit Manufacturing and Installation Procurement Purchase" conducted in 2014 with Suwon City as the demand agency, K Company won the bid at 3.98 billion won.

Combined, the two projects total 4.767 billion won.

The local contract-related regulations at the time also established procedures to verify corporate registration information when registering bidding participation qualifications.

Article 15 of the "Enforcement Rules of the Act on Contracts with Local Governments as Parties" stipulates that the head of a local government receiving an application for bidding participation qualification registration must "verify" related administrative information such as corporate registration certificates through joint administrative information usage.

Corporate registration certificates are included in the scope of verification for corporations not only in construction registration but also in material manufacturing and purchase registration and service registration.

When K Company was participating in this project, Mr. A, a current senior official from the Environment Bureau, was listed as an executive in K Company's corporate registration.

Based on currently confirmed registration records, the period during which Mr. A was listed as a registered director of K Company exceeds eight years.

Evidence has also been found of the city conducting business with K Company prior to this.

Through company promotional materials and other sources, K Company states that it installed a screw-type small-scale hydroelectric power generation facility at the Gwanggyeok Water Purification Plant in Jangan-gu, Suwon.

Related videos contain information that the screw-type small-scale hydroelectric power generation equipment at the Gwanggyeok Water Purification Plant has been in operation for several years.

Contracts between the city and K Company also occurred recently.

According to the city's contract information disclosure system and other sources, an additional four contracts were identified: one in September 2022, two in January 2024, and one in February 2024. The combined contract value for these four contracts is approximately 69.94 million won.

Suwon Ilbo requested from the city details of contracts between K Company and the city and institutions where city funds have been invested, including wastewater treatment plant-related contracts not confirmed in the contract information disclosure system.

The city initially said it would disclose the relevant materials on the 18th, but suddenly postponed the disclosure schedule to the 7th of the following month on the scheduled disclosure date.

A city official stated, "Contracts proceed in accordance with legal regulations, so there should have been no issues with the contracts themselves," but added, "It is difficult to verify detailed materials due to reasons such as the expiration of data retention periods."