A confirmation hearing for Minister nominee Lee Hye-hoon of the Ministry of Planning and Budget will be held at 10 a.m. on the 19th.
Ruling and opposition party secretaries on the National Assembly Strategy and Finance Committee held a full meeting on the afternoon of the 13th and adopted a plan for a confirmation hearing on the nominee.
They agreed to call four witnesses and one reference witness, the biggest point of contention. In connection with the nominee's alleged gift tax evasion and land speculation on Yeongjongdo, they will call as witnesses Oh Sang-hun, director general of asset taxation at the National Tax Service, and Kim Dong-hwan, former researcher at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), respectively.
On the allegations of fraudulent applications, they decided to apply to call as witnesses Jeong Su-ho, head of the dwellings fund division at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and Gwon O-in, head of the subscription market management division at the Korea Real Estate Board (REB).
They also selected Son Ju-ha, a district councilor of the Seoul Jung-gu Council, as a reference witness in connection with the power abuse controversy.
As for the confirmation hearing schedule, they kept it on the 19th as previously agreed, but allowed for a postponement if the document submissions are insufficient. The submission deadline for advance requested materials and materials requested by committee resolution was set for the 15th.
They also allowed the playback of video and audio recordings. The Democratic Party had maintained that playback was not possible under precedent.
Initially, the People Power Party argued to apply for 33 witnesses, saying there was no shortage of controversy surrounding the nominee, while the Democratic Party pushed back, saying it would accept only a small number of witnesses.