Luxury for pets? Shallow pool at presidential residence raises questions
A liberal lawmaker's revelation of a shallow pool inside the presidential residence in Yongsan-gu, Seoul, has raised speculation that disgraced former President Yoon Suk Yeol may have built a swimming pool for the first couple's pets when he moved in.
This aligns with ongoing suspicion by the liberal Democratic Party of Korea, which became the country's ruling party with President Lee Jae-myung's election win, about the excessive use of water inside the official residence.
Rep. Kim Byoung-joo said in the party's supreme council meeting Monday that the speculation that the pool was used for pets, not humans, is gaining ground.
"I've looked around the space inside the official residence of the president, and a pool grabbed my attention," said Kim, who was one of the ruling party lawmakers invited to visit the official residence on Saturday.
"We should closely examine whether the Yoons installed facilities for personal use with taxpayers' money after moving into the official residence, where no one can monitor how the money is being spent," the two-term lawmaker Kim also said, adding that Yoon and his wife are suspected of having installed a cat tower worth 5 million won ($3,680).
Before President Lee and his wife, Kim Hye-kyung, took over the space as their official residence, Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, were the first South Korean presidential couple to have chosen to use a building in the Seoul neighborhood of Hannam-dong, Yongsan-gu, formerly a residence for the foreign minister, as the presidential residence. The Yoon couple kept six dogs and five cats there until a week after Yoon was removed from office by the Constitutional Court in April amid the political crisis caused by his attempted self-coup.
The pool -- estimated to be 5 meters long and 2 meters wide, with a shallow end about 50 centimeters deep -- recently grabbed media attention as four-term Democratic Party lawmaker Rep. Park Hong-keun revealed a photo of the shallow pool inside the residence.
Citing water bills it had obtained, local newspaper Hankyoreh revealed in late May that water usage at the residence began to skyrocket from the summer of 2023, rising from 972 tons during the April-May period to 1,622 tons during the June-July period. Water consumption peaked at 2,051 tons during the August-September period in 2024.
A representative of former president Yoon was quoted by Yonhap on Monday as saying that the speculation is not true and that the pool was built for use in landscaping a few months before United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan visited Seoul in October 2023.
According to Rep. Kim Young-hwan of the liberal party, the Yoon couple's use of water amounted to 228 tons in the week between Yoon's removal from office and his departure from the home.
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