“Give you a seat on the public bidding evaluation committee?”
The prime minister’s residence.
When I conveyed what I wanted, Lee Chanho looked surprised, as if he hadn’t expected it.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be me. I’d just like at least one person from our pension fund to participate in selecting the contractors.”
“Same difference. Even if someone else participates, you’ll be the one doing the evaluation in the end, won’t you?”
“Haha…”
“What’s the reason?”
“There’s no particular meaning. A considerable portion of our fund’s money is being put into this Ukraine loan, so I’d like the contractor selection process to be a little more transparent…?”
Lee Chanho smiled bitterly.
“Look here, that’s why we’re doing everything through ‘public bidding,’ without any private contracts. Don’t tell me you think that just because I’ve received some political funds from you, I’d take kickbacks on this project too?”
“Of course not. I have absolute faith in you and the president. I simply don’t trust businessmen.”
“Distrust toward the construction industry?”
“In various ways… As you know, domestic construction companies have been starved of work for a long time. Now, just as they’re on the verge of drying up completely, a flood of projects like this has appeared. Do you really think they’ll be honest?”
The recent downturn that struck Korea’s real estate market is no ordinary matter.
Because of the government’s population dispersion policy and Mayor Choi Sangdong’s powerful regulations, these days it’s difficult to find even a single excavator in Seoul.
Then at least the construction economy in the provinces should be improving, but that’s still a distant prospect…
There are still fifty thousand toxic unsold units left in the provinces from the real estate frenzy, and commercial vacancies are at an even more serious level. In other words, until that inventory is cleared, there is no way the construction economy will improve.
That is why I don’t believe them.
With their storehouses so empty, will construction companies really win contracts honestly? Especially when construction is the industry most closely tied to politics?
“Our pension fund simply hopes that this money, which was so difficult to prepare, will be used as transparently and efficiently as possible, yes.”
I conveyed my meaning as tactfully as I could so that he wouldn’t take offense.
After listening to my explanation, Lee Chanho spoke with a calm expression.
“All right. Then we’ll do that.”
“R-really?”
“Why are you surprised?”
Of course I was. At the very least, this was something that should be discussed with the Blue House before making a decision. I hadn’t expected him to answer immediately like this.
“That’s how much I trust you, Team Leader Lee. You, who usually have no greed for titles, are asking for a seat, so there must be a reason. It’s not as if you’re trying to hand work to a construction company you’ve already marked out in advance, is it?”
Like the seasoned politician he was, he probed me in return.
“Of course not. I’ll uncover companies like that.”
“Good, good. I’ll report it separately to the Blue House. There shouldn’t be any issue.”
“Thank you.”
As we said that, we exchanged a suspicious-looking bag that did not suit the conversation we had just been having at all.
That was because, for this meeting, Lee Chanho had specifically asked for cash.
“I really am grateful every time. There’s no one quite like you.”
“Not at all. If it helps you focus on state affairs, Prime Minister, I can do anything. By the way, has something happened inside or outside the party…?”
“Why, does my face look dark?”
“No. It’s just that I think this is the first time you’ve asked for cash instead of using the Singapore account. And your complexion looks a little dark too.”
When I asked subtly, Lee Chanho answered with a bitter expression.
“Politics truly isn’t easy. Now that the final years of the term are approaching, incidents keep breaking out inside and outside the party. I suppose in politics, there really are no eternal enemies or friends.”
“Ah…”
“Political funds are truly endless. If you give one fellow a title, you have to give another the chairmanship of a public corporation, and if someone fails to get nominated, you have to give him pocket money too… Tsk, tsk. Are there really so few people who will work for the country without selfish motives?”
I nodded hard with the most sympathetic expression I could manage.
President Kim Sangcheol, now in the third year of his term, was slowly being prepared for retirement. Not by himself, but by the currents within the party, which were turning him into a retiree.
As the general and presidential elections approached, anonymous accusations began circulating within the party, and power gradually shifted away from the president toward the next person who would hold personnel authority.
“What good are 190 seats? The lawmakers from the capital region are now on worse terms with us than the opposition.”
And this fight was extremely unfavorable to President Kim.
Additional nuclear power plant construction, hikes in public utility fees, autonomous taxis, powerful regulations on Seoul… Because he had implemented nothing but painful policies throughout his term, his standing was shrinking day by day.
“…”
To be honest, I felt rather sorry for Kim Sangcheol.
The Kim Sangcheol I originally knew was the incarnation of populism, freezing public utility fees throughout his term. He strengthened basic income to stimulate domestic demand, and strengthened the national pension for the elderly. Thanks to that, even when he died, he died as the father of the common people.
The problem unfolded after his death. Strangely enough, Korea’s fiscal deficit soared, the national pension came close to depletion, and the competitiveness of our companies continued to decline. But since all of that happened after his death, at any rate, he lived out his allotted years and passed away.
Having twisted the life of such a fortunate man so badly… As one human being to another, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“If I may be so bold, Prime Minister… this direction is the right one.”
“What?”
“You and the president will be recorded as a wise ruler and a brilliant statesman.”
But compared to the future I remembered, the present would be far better.
If my memory was correct, Eunma Apartment eventually hit ten billion won, the population of the capital region surpassed thirty-five million, and the extinction of the provinces accelerated. Then, when another real estate disaster struck Korea, it became an enormous social problem. When the real estate prices that had skyrocketed plunged, just as in the patterns of the past, our construction companies, which had been surviving on narcotic painkillers, paid for it with interest through an extremely harsh restructuring.
“With the myth that Gangnam never falls broken, and population dispersion taking place, the toxic unsold units in the provinces are also being cleared little by little. The construction cold wave right now can’t be helped. It was a problem someone had to carry the cross for. The energy supply issue was also an unavoidable policy. Global society will continue to aim for green development.”
Lee Chanho looked at me and gave a small laugh.
“Well, this is surprising. I put one title on you, and now flattery comes out of Team Leader Lee’s mouth?”
“It’s not flattery, it’s sincere—”
“Enough. I’ll make sure the pension fund gets one seat during the reconstruction project bidding, so stop. What’s with all this embarrassing talk between us? Heh-heh-heh.”
He said that, but it seemed to have comforted him nonetheless.
Lee Chanho smiled good-naturedly and patted my shoulder. But the heaviness in my heart did not fade.
Only one year now… One year left.
In one year, all the people I had painstakingly built up would lose their power, and a new power holder would appear. But if my memory was correct, an ultra-giant ruling party with 190 seats would never appear again in Korean history.
“…”
It was a bitter thing. Even struggling this desperately, there was still no way to resolve “that problem.”
*
“Come in, come in~”
“My goodness, how long has it been? Have you all been well?”
“We’ve been living because we couldn’t quite die. But I heard President Kim succeeded in renewing his executive contract?”
“It’s only a renewal in name. In reality, it’s a slave contract. My performance bonus got smashed, and I’m barely taking home my base salary.”
“Listen to you whining. They say the closure rate for small businesses these days is higher than during the IMF crisis. These days, you should be grateful just to have a company paying you a salary.”
“Hahaha. True, true.”
The presidents of the Big Five construction companies, gathered in one place, welcomed one another as if they were at a class reunion.
A cold wave had recently struck the industry, and the knife winds of restructuring had been blowing, but for the first time in a very long while, the government had created a large batch of work for them.
In truth, no matter what, it was uncomfortable for competing companies to meet ahead of a bidding competition, but today the circumstances were a little different.
“All right, all right. That’s enough greetings. Shall we talk business?”
Because the members gathered here today were veterans of bid rigging, and this was far from their first time working in step together.
“Before we get to the main topic, can I say one thing first?”
No sooner had President Kim finished speaking than President Park raised his hand.
“What is it that has you looking so solemn?”
“I’m not asking for anything big. The expressway, just give me that. In any case, the biggest portion of the Ukraine reconstruction project is private housing, isn’t it? If you yield just that to me, I won’t even look at anyone else’s bowl.”
“Look at you. You’re going to take a seat-out fee and call it a day?”
“How is that a seat-out fee? This is more like peeking in on a hwatu game and going out for one cigarette errand. From what I saw, the work here isn’t worth much. If you give us just this, Yeongjin Construction will cleanly withdraw from the bidding.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than the remaining four presidents glanced at one another.
There was no disagreement. Expressway infrastructure was not a particularly large job, and it wasn’t a portion anyone especially coveted.
“Good. Then everyone has no objections, right? Keep your promise.”
“President Park, why are you so excited? Looking at the bidding list, the support budget for the expressway is only fifty billion won.”
“I’m going to bid sixty billion.”
“What?”
“It isn’t that large a project, so I should leave myself some margin. Heh-heh. When it’s time to bid on the expressway, all of you write in around seventy billion won. We’ll play the dummy bidder properly too.”
“I knew there was a reason you were dropping out after taking just one chicken leg. What a total robber…”
And just like that, the winning bidder and the dummy bidders were decided in an instant. A project with a fair price in the fifty-billion-won range was inflated to sixty billion.
“Good. Then public facilities, railways, ports, apartments… those four are left. Anyone else want to cash out here?”
“President Kim! If you give us the railways and public facilities, we’ll pull out too. Then the three of you can divide the remaining work nicely among yourselves.”
“How much does Taeyeong Construction plan to skim off this time?”
“The total work here is around one hundred billion won, and we’ll leave exactly twenty percent.”
Like that, work involving roads, ports, bridges, railways, subways, rivers, and the like was taken out, and finally only the main dish remained.
“Good. Now this is the real thing. Private housing is left.”
President Kim of PM Construction looked at President Choe of Daeseong Construction.
Among all the work this time, the private housing portion boasted the largest scale, starting in units of hundreds of billions of won. Even if they pursued an honest margin, it was a project that promised tens of billions of won in net profit.
But that was only if competition did not arise.
If the two major construction companies began a bleeding competition over this one job, the money they could leave behind would shrink to a few billion won. That was why this meeting today was more important than anything else.
“I’ll say this first, President Choe. We don’t want to fight Daeseong. The industry is already struggling enough as it is. We shouldn’t fight over work.”
“I agree. Then propose a way we can get along. Do you have something prepared?”
“Mm… Since this is such a large project, the government will probably be very conscious of bid rigging. How about this method?”
When President Kim whispered to him, President Choe tilted his head slightly.
“Is that for real?”
“Yes. In fact, we’ve used this method several times, and it’s won every time. We absolutely won’t get caught. Heh-heh.”