President Lee Jae-myung on the 24th ordered the launch of effective and fundamental institutional reforms, including imposing punitive surcharges instead of fines on businesses illegally occupying rivers and valleys.
During a Cabinet meeting held at the Blue House, President Lee received a briefing from Minister of the Interior and Safety Yoon Ho-jung on the status of fact-finding surveys and crackdowns related to illegal occupation of rivers and valleys. He stated, "They're all violating the law to make money, so investigating and punishing them with fines is useless."
President Lee pointed out, "They change the person being punished, switching names to continue operations. At most it's a 5 million won fine, and even for repeat offenses it's only 7 million or 10 million won. So they pay the fine and if caught again, they switch the name to a daughter-in-law or brother-in-law and keep doing it."
Given the frequent illegal activities through such fraudulent name transfers, President Lee said, "Consider measures to strengthen surcharges. Surcharges must generate costs exceeding profits. Make it possible to calculate by multiplying the violation area by a certain amount, times the number of years, so that making money through illegal means becomes impossible."
He added, "Make it so that profits are recovered even after time has passed. Criminal punishment is useless. It just wastes time on investigations, indictments, and trials. I want this to be comprehensively reviewed once again."