The National Assembly's Climate, Energy, Environment and Labor Committee finalized the list of witnesses and references for this year's parliamentary audits. A slate of major business figures, including Kim Byung-joo, chairman of MBK Partners, Jeong Jong-cheol, head of Coupang CFS, and Do Se-ho, CEO of SPC, were included. The audit is expected to zero in on industrial accidents and unpaid wages.
The National Assembly Climate, Energy and Environment and Labor Committee held a general meeting on the 1st and approved a total of 26 people, including 16 witnesses and 10 references, for audits to be conducted from the 14th to the 30th. There were no witnesses related to energy, and only four witnesses were related to climate and the environment, including electric vehicle expansion (Kim Dong-wook, Hyundai Motor vice president) and environmental pollution at the Seokpo Smelter (Kim Ki-ho, Young Poong Group CEO). Most of the focus was on labor issues.
Witnesses on labor issues include Jeong Jong-cheol, head of Coupang CFS (nonpayment of severance to day laborers), Lee Bae-won, CEO of Nitto Optical (employment succession), a representative of Apple Korea, Kang Hyeong-uk, Do Se-ho, CEO of SPC (fatal accident at the Siwha plant), Hwang Sun-bae, head of human resources at Naver (bullying in the workplace), and Kim Ki-won, CEO of McDonald's Korea (bullying in the workplace). Regarding the large-scale unpaid wage incident, former Daewoo Winia Chairman Park Young-woo was listed again as a witness after failing to appear last year.
From the construction sector, Ju Woo-jeong, CEO of Hyundai Engineering, Song Chi-young, CEO of POSCO E&C, and Kim Min-sik, head of construction execution at E-Land Construction, were selected as witnesses over industrial accident issues. Regarding the Homeplus restructuring, MBK Chairman Kim Byung-joo was named to the witness list.
Ruling and opposition parties also clashed over the witness selection process. People Power Party lawmaker Woo Jae-joon said, "All the businesspeople were included on the (witness and reference) list," and demanded that MBC President Ahn Hyung-joon be called as a witness in connection with the death of the late Oh Yo-anna, an MBC weathercaster. The Democratic Party opposed the move, but the matter was put to rest as the ruling and opposition party floor managers agreed to hold further talks.
At the general meeting, concerns were also raised about confusion in the audits due to a government reorganization. Earlier, the ruling party and the government agreed to transfer the energy policy function of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to the Ministry of Environment and reorganize it into the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment, while keeping the nuclear export unit within the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. As a result, there are concerns that energy-related audits could be duplicated or "empty shells."
Kim Hyeong-dong, a People Power Party floor manager, criticized, saying, "It would be better for the existing Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs and Startups Committee to handle the energy-related audits this year, and for us to take over starting next year. We are not prepared for test questions that suddenly changed or increased." In response, Committee Chairperson Ahn Ho-young of the Democratic Party said, "It was changed to the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment to address urgent national tasks," adding, "There may be confusion in the process of the sudden change, but we will ask the government to cooperate actively to ensure a thorough and faithful audit."