A company that received subsidies from the government and installed electric vehicle charging facilities failed to pay electricity bills and left about 3,000 chargers inoperative and unattended, according to a joint government investigation. Cases were also found in which the locations and quantities of charger installations were changed arbitrarily without proper procedures, or in which the remaining balance of subsidies was not returned after completing the subsidized project. The government recovered about 10 billion won in subsidies from them.
The Government-wide Corruption Prevention Promotion Team of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, jointly with the Ministry of Environment, inspected the operation of the support project for installing electric vehicle charging facilities and announced the results on the 17th.
An official with the Corruption Prevention Promotion Team said, "Even though the budget for installing electric vehicle charging facilities has increased sharply every year, there has been no inspection or audit of the overall project," and added, "From April to June, we conducted a joint inspection with the Ministry of Environment on issues raised by the media, such as inadequate post-management of charging facilities and the selection of unqualified operators."
The promotion team and the Ministry of Environment reviewed the support projects carried out from 2020 to 2023 by the Korea Environment Corporation (K-eco) and the Korea Automobile Environmental Association. The scale of subsidies for the support projects carried out over the four years amounts to 664.6 billion won. The inspection uncovered ◇ improper management of charging facilities (about 24,000 units) ◇ improper execution of project expenses (9.77 billion won) ◇ underreporting of value-added taxes using subsidies (12.1 billion won).
Company A, which operates more than 4,000 chargers nationwide, was found to have left a total of 2,796 chargers inoperative and unattended, including KEPCO removing meters due to unpaid electricity bills.
Over the past year, electric vehicle users complained of inconvenience and requested repairs, but Company A made no efforts to normalize operations, such as paying electricity bills, selling chargers, or transferring the business.
Accordingly, the Korea Environment Corporation (K-eco) decided to take measures by preparing immediate solutions for Company A, such as paying the overdue electricity bills and selling the chargers.
Regular inspections were also being run poorly. Implementing agencies must conduct regular inspections at least once every half year to determine whether all charging facilities in operation are malfunctioning and submit the results to the corporation or the association. If problems are found during the inspection, measures such as the return of subsidies must be taken.
However, this inspection revealed that charging facilities had been arbitrarily removed within the mandatory operation period (five years). Even after recognizing the arbitrary removal, the corporation did not carry out procedures to recover subsidies.
In response, the promotion team decided to immediately recover subsidies for noncompliant removals and to improve evaluations so that implementing agencies that did not submit regular inspection results will face disadvantages in the evaluation for selecting operators in the next round.
It was confirmed that companies submitted plans to the association to install chargers and received subsidies, but then arbitrarily changed the installation sites or the number of units. The promotion team said that the association, as the managing body, should have verified this, but problems were found in the execution and management of project funds, such as paying advances without sufficient review.
Accordingly, the promotion team ordered the recovery of 570 million won in subsidies related to arbitrarily changed chargers and directed the establishment of a system that can digitally manage the progress of projects going forward.
Kim Young-su, the first vice minister of the Office for Government Policy Coordination, said, "Based on the results of this inspection, we will promptly carry out follow-up measures such as returning unspent balances and conducting a comprehensive inspection of nonoperational chargers," and added, "We will also thoroughly push institutional improvements, including upgrading the charger management system and improving procedures for selecting implementing agencies."