(LEAD) Transition team strongly denounces appointment of Moon brother's friend as DSME CEO

All News 15:37 March 31, 2022

(ATTN: ADDS Cheong Wa Dae's response in paras 5-6)

SEOUL, March 31 (Yonhap) -- President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol's transition team said Thursday it will ask the state auditor to look into the recent appointment of a friend of President Moon Jae-in's younger brother as CEO of a local shipbuilder under government control.

Transition committee deputy spokesperson Won Il-hee made the remark after Park Doo-sun was named CEO of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) earlier this week, denouncing the appointment as "irrational" and "shameless."

"Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering pushed ahead with the unreasonable measure of electing new CEO Park Doo-sun who is known as a college alumnus of the younger brother of President Moon Jae-in," the spokesperson said.

"Even though it superficially went through the procedure of board approval of a private firm, it is an irrational and shameless move that raises reasonable suspicion that there is actually a separate person who made the appointment," he said.

Won said the shipbuilder is effectively a public corporation that 4.1 trillion won of taxpayer money was injected into, and it is "common sense" that its CEO should be someone best fit to work with the incoming government.

Hours later, Cheong Wa Dae struck back, saying it came as a surprise that the transition team has cast "covetous eyes" on the CEO position of the shipbuilder.

Presidential deputy spokesperson Shin Hye-hyun said the company's CEO position "is not the job that either the current or next government should cast covetous eyes on because DSME only needs an internal expert of management to help the debt-ridden shipbuilder normalize its operations."

DSME is considered a quasi-public firm based on its ownership structure. The shipbuilder's largest shareholder is the Korea Development Bank (KDB) that is run by the government.

Won said Park's appointment can be considered "abuse of power" by the outgoing government and that the transition team will request an investigation into the case.

"Beyond common sense and custom, it is highly likely that the appointment is a case of abusing power and ignoring the guidelines from the watchdog Financial Services Commission," Won said. "We will request the Board of Audit and Inspection to review the case and find out whether it is a subject for investigation."