Smart safety equipment worth 80 billion won ($58 million) has largely been left unused at industrial sites, while cases of subsidy fraud and excessive support were also uncovered.
The Anti-Corruption Initiative Team under the Office for Government Policy Coordination announced Monday the results of a joint inspection with the Ministry of Employment and Labor into the Industrial Accident Prevention Program run by the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency (KOSHA). According to the findings, the agency has spent 80 billion won over the past three years providing smart safety equipment, such as collision prevention devices, to small workplaces with fewer than 50 employees. However, 60% of the equipment was not being properly used, with many devices broken or abandoned at worksites. In addition, 77% of workplaces continued to use existing aging equipment despite receiving new installations, sold the new equipment to other businesses, or received more units than needed for replacement.
Subsidy fraud and excessive support were also detected. Inspectors identified 81 cases of fraudulent receipt, including schemes in which workplaces receiving safety equipment conspired with sales companies to inflate investment documents, obtain subsidies, and receive kickbacks on their self-paid portions. There were also 571 cases of excessive support, in which construction sites reduced project amounts or split a single site into two to qualify as small-scale construction sites (under 5 billion won) for industrial accident insurance registration.
The Industrial Accident Prevention Program, funded by the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Fund, is aimed at reducing hazardous and dangerous factors at industrial sites. It spends an average of more than 1 trillion won annually on safety equipment support, replacement of hazardous and aging facilities, and technical guidance such as safety consulting. Despite these efforts, Korea's industrial accident rate (fatal accident rate per 10,000 workers of 0.39) remains higher than the OECD average of 0.29, and small workplaces with fewer than 50 employees (0.53) are far more vulnerable than larger workplaces (0.18).
In response, the Anti-Corruption Initiative Team conducted the joint inspection with the Ministry of Employment and Labor from August last year through January this year to address gaps in the industrial accident prevention support system and prevent budget waste and improper administrative practices.
