Exclusive Suwon City Signed Tens of Billions of Won in Contracts with Environmental Equipment Firm While Current Environmental Bureau Official Was Corporate Director

Suwon City has been found to have carried out a project worth approximately 4.76 billion won with an environmental equipment firm at a time when a current Environmental Bureau official was listed as a corporate director of the company.

According to Suwon City and other sources on the 21st, the city initiated a "sewage treatment plant odor removal facility installation project" beginning in 2013. The total project cost was 9.254 billion won based on fiscal disclosure standards in 2016.

The project involved installing deodorizer units and deodorizing pipes to reduce odors generated during sewage treatment processes.

Environmental equipment firm K Company won consecutive bids in material purchase tenders in 2013 and 2014 related to this project.

In 2013, the "sewage treatment plant odor removal facility installation project government-supplied materials (sludge storage facility) purchase" announced by the Incheon Regional Procurement Service under the Public Procurement Service, with Suwon Environmental Business Division as the requesting agency, K Company won the bid at 787 million won.

In 2014, in the "sewage treatment plant odor removal facility installation project deodorizer manufacturing and installation procurement purchase" conducted with Suwon City as the requesting agency, K Company won the bid at 3.98 billion won.

Combined, the two projects total 4.767 billion won.

At that time, local contract-related regulations included procedures requiring verification of corporate registration information during the process of registering bidding participant qualifications.

Article 15 of the "Enforcement Rules of the Act on Contracts with Local Governments as Parties" stipulates that local government heads receiving applications for bidding participant qualification registration must "verify" relevant administrative information such as corporate registration certificates through joint use of administrative information.

Corporate registration certificates were included in verification requirements not only for construction registration but also for material manufacturing and purchase registration and service registration.

At the time K Company participated in this project, individual A, a current Environmental Bureau official, was listed as a corporate officer in K Company's corporate registration ledger.

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

Evidence has been found that the city carried out projects with K Company prior to this.

K Company introduced through company promotional materials that it installed screw-type small-scale hydropower generation equipment at the Gwanggyo Water Purification Plant in Jangan-gu, Suwon City.

Related videos contain content stating that the screw-type small-scale hydropower generation equipment at the Gwanggyo Water Purification Plant has been in operation for several years.

Contracts between the city and K Company also existed in recent times.

According to the city's contract information disclosure system, a total of four additional contracts were confirmed: one in September 2022, two in January 2024, and one in February 2024. The contract amounts for these four projects total approximately 699.4 million won.

News S requested from the city contract details between K Company and agencies where city budget was invested, including sewage treatment plant-related contracts not confirmed in the contract information disclosure system.

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

A city official stated, "Contracts have proceeded in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, so there should be no issues with the contract itself," but added, "It is difficult to confirm detailed materials due to reasons such as the expiration of data retention periods."