◀ anchor ▶
After all, even that one-line answer was not written by Candidate Han Deok-soo himself.
What about other ministerial candidates?
You said you got another advisory report?
◀ reporter ▶
yes. After being discharged from the military as a three-star general, Lee Jong-seop, a candidate for Minister of National Defense, received 42 million won as an advisory fee from the Defense Science Research Institute, a research institute under the Ministry of National Defense.
When we obtained an advisory report, we found that they copied and submitted newspaper articles as they were, and there were many cases where consultations on different topics were the same, but the content was the same.
It appears to have been a so-called ‘copy-paste’ of copying and pasting.
Reporter Cho Myung-ah covered how he wrote it down.
◀ Report ▶
This is an advisory report submitted by Candidate Jong-seop Lee for Minister of National Defense on February 11th at the request of the Defense Science Research Institute.
Regarding the current situation and development plan of the reconnaissance satellites in the South and North Korea, I wrote detailed advice by citing the Rodong Sinmun and interviewing experts.
However, this candidate’s report was almost identical to an article in one media outlet.
The first paragraph starting with ‘As North Korea began to develop a military reconnaissance satellite in earnest’ was exactly the same as the article, and the second paragraph also subtracted the period ‘until November 2023’ and the satellite weight ‘100kg’ to ‘200kg Everything is the same as in the article except for the ‘.
Even this article was published on March 10, almost a month after this candidate’s advisory was given.
I quoted an article from the Rodong Sinmun on March 10 that reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un provided on-site guidance to the National Space Development Agency, and it is presumed that this content was copied as it is.
As a result, the absurd thing that happened a month later, in March, was included in the report in February, a month earlier.
As a result of the coverage, there was only one case on the 25th that candidate Lee personally consulted in February, and the Defense Science Research Institute paid additional advisory fees as if the documents were prepared as if they had been given written advice.
As such, the February advisory fee falsely paid to candidate Lee Jong-seop amounted to 3 million won.
Poor advisory situations are evident everywhere.
It was a consultation on a different topic, and the answer was only 15 cases where the same case was confirmed.
This candidate, a former three-star general, has been treated as a first-class expert at the National Defense Science Research Institute, receiving an hourly consulting fee of 400,000 won.
[안규백 의원/국회 국방위원회 ]
“There are cases where (the content of the consultation) was repeated or duplicated, or even copied and submitted a column from a daily newspaper as it is.”
The Defense Science Research Institute apologized, saying that the employee read the newspaper and compiled the report, and announced that the overpaid advisory fee would be refunded.
The candidate’s preparatory team effectively admitted that they did not write it themselves, stating that they had no knowledge of the advisory report.
This is MBC News Cho Myung-ah.
Video coverage: Jang Jae-hyun, Kim Woo-ram / Video editing: Jo Ara
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