Incheon Assembly halts audit of free economic zone authority over flawed data

The Incheon City Council suspended an administrative audit of the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority on Friday after the agency submitted error-riddled documents and officials failed to answer basic questions from lawmakers.

Figures for project costs, site areas, budget expenditures and service contract details were found to be inconsistent across multiple documents, raising questions about the reliability of the audit process. Critics said the agency had failed to verify even the materials it submitted before the session.

The council's Industry and Economy Committee halted the 2026 administrative audit of the authority and announced it would resume Wednesday.

Lawmaker Choi Byeong-eun, who led the challenge during the session, said a comparison of the agency's key business report and audit materials revealed dozens of numerical discrepancies and basic factual errors.

The most prominent example involved the Cheongna Sky Bridge, also known as the third cross-sea link, one of Incheon's major ongoing projects. The agency's documents listed the project cost as 767.7 billion won ($576 million) on one page and 764.5 billion won on another — a difference of 3.2 billion won.

Even the sum of itemized figures did not match the stated total project cost, meaning the documents failed to meet the most basic standard of internal consistency.

Discrepancies were also found in site area figures for the Cheongna Medical Complex Town and Yeongjong International School, as well as in budget execution amounts, contractor names and contract values.

Choi said submitting documents with conflicting figures on core projects undermined the Assembly's legitimate oversight function, and sharply criticized the authority's document preparation and verification processes.

The data problems also disrupted the question-and-answer portion of the audit. Lawmaker Bang Ji-hyeon said in a procedural statement that errors in the submitted materials kept recurring and that the officials responsible could not provide clear answers to lawmakers' questions.

Bang called for the audit to be suspended until accurate and corrected materials were provided, saying that proceeding under such conditions would reduce the process to a formality rather than genuine administrative oversight.

As lawmakers continued to raise objections, Industry and Economy Committee Chairman Moon Se-jong declared the audit suspended.

Moon said numerous cases had been found in which even key figures in the submitted documents did not match, and called it irresponsible for the agency to present materials that had not undergone basic verification, saying it showed a disregard for the Assembly's audit authority.

Moon said the matter could not be dismissed as a simple clerical error, and called on the authority to provide a responsible explanation and a plan to prevent recurrence, noting that submitting flawed materials was a serious problem that undermined the credibility and effectiveness of the administrative audit.

The suspension is expected to have significant repercussions, as it points to the need for a comprehensive review of the authority's document management and reporting systems.

The Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority oversees major development projects across the Cheongna, Yeongjong and Songdo free economic zones, making the accuracy of basic administrative data — including project costs, budgets and site conditions — a foundation for sound policy and project credibility.

The repeated errors in official audit materials submitted to the Assembly, compounded by the inability of responsible civil servants to answer questions, have made it difficult to dismiss concerns about structural problems in the agency's internal verification and audit-response systems.

The Industry and Economy Committee called on the authority to conduct a full review of all relevant materials, submit accurate corrected documents, provide a responsible account of how the errors occurred, and present measures to prevent recurrence.

Attention will now turn to whether the authority can deliver thorough materials and credible answers when the audit resumes Wednesday.