LH Rental Housing Management Service Sweeps Two Companies... Suspicions of 'Privilege for Ex-commissioners'

[Anchor]
Suspicions of 'preferential treatment for the former' are being raised among the service providers that manage LH purchased rental housing.

It was found that high-ranking LH retirees were employed in the two companies that swept 70% of the service contracts, and suspicious circumstances were also found during the evaluation process at the time of the contract.

This is reporter Son Hyo-jung.

[Reporter]
The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced an innovation plan late last year as criticism against LH rose due to the omission of reinforcing bars in apartments.

[Kim Oh-jin / Then First Vice Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (December last year): We will also thoroughly resolve the privileged cartel centered on the former post that caused poor construction. We will transfer the authority to select design, construction, and supervision companies to a specialized institution.]

In the process of designing and constructing a house, we promised to break the practice of driving work to all companies, but blind spots still remain.

LH purchases urban homes and provides them to the vulnerable at relatively low rents, and preferential conditions have been detected in the process of selecting a service provider that manages the housing, such as a management office.

LH signs rental housing management service contracts every three years, with 42 contracts, more than 70% of the total 54 areas, concentrated in two companies.

In terms of the amount, it is worth 100 billion won, which is more than 80% of the total.

There are usually about 10 companies competing in each region, but the monopoly structure of the two companies has been formed.

However, it has been confirmed that there is a former senior LH official in these companies.

The head of a regional center of Company A is a first-class former director who served as the head of LH's residential welfare department and the head of the regional headquarters, and Company B also has a high-ranking former officer who served as the head of Gwangju Jeonnam and Incheon headquarters.

Including them, there are four LH graduates working at Company A and eight at Company B.

How was the evaluation process?

After evaluating the proposal, LH selected an order company by conducting a price bidding, and there were many cases where A and B were qualified alone in the proposal evaluation and received bids regardless of price competitiveness.

Looking at the evaluation table, one evaluator gave the highest score to the company and the second-place company was given a low score, which widened the difference between the first and second places.

[Lee Chun-seok / Democratic Party member: LH needs to have a clear explanation about him and if there is a problem, we need to investigate thoroughly and come up with measures to deal with it]

As LH signs a three-year consignment contract for management services worth 150 billion won again at the end of this year, it is pointed out that transparent management and supervision are needed to resolve suspicions of collusion between the former officials.

I'm Son Hyojung of YTN.