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For three years from 2019, the Ministry of Environment has installed fences across the country to prevent wild boars that transmit African swine fever.

However, it was confirmed that a private contract was signed with an amount of over 170 billion won, even though it was a public project on a scale that required competitive bidding.



Reporter Won Seok-jin of G1 Broadcasting reported.



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ASF, the first outbreak of African swine fever at a pig farm in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, in September 2019.



At that time, the card that the government hastily pulled out to prevent the spread of ASF was a 'fence'.



Total length 2,693.2 km.

A whopping 177 billion won was budgeted for three years.



Generally, in the case of public projects, more than 20 million won must go through a competitive bidding, but the ASF fence ended with a private contract.



According to Article 26 of the National Contract Act, the requirements for a voluntary contract are natural disasters, operational movement of troops, and emergency disasters requiring emergency recovery.



There is no livestock disease.



In May 2020, an infectious disease requirement was added due to the spread of COVID-19, but the contract started earlier in November 2019.



[Kang Dae-gyu / Attorney: Since the outbreak of Corona, the urgency requirement was added for infectious diseases at that time (May 2020).

Prevention and spread of infectious diseases.

The infectious disease referred to here is, of course, an infectious disease that (targets) people according to the Infectious Disease Prevention Act...

.]



The Ministry of Environment is of the opinion that ASF is an emergency disaster and that a veterinary contract was possible because it was an infectious disease.



[Kim Ji-soo / Head of the Wild Animal Disease Management Team at the time of the contract: I think it was not in a situation to coordinate in advance with the fence company registered with the Public Procurement Service as in the usual contract.]



However, is it possible to interpret ASF as an 'emergency disaster' in the legal community ?

, raises questions about whether the infectious disease added by COVID-19 can be viewed as ASF.



Even considering the urgency, it is also a problem that both the second and third year projects were signed as private contracts.



[Kim Hyung-soo / Director General of the National Budget Monitoring Network: Because of the urgency, I can understand up to the first year, but the fact that this project was carried out until the second and third years means that there was time for competitive bidding.



] There was also a case of belatedly equipped with a metal structure window construction business corporation necessary for the contract.