After reviewing this year’s salt collection efforts in mid-August, North Korea’s Ministry of Defense sharply criticized military units that failed to meet their collection quotas, Daily NK has learned.
“The defense ministry instructed various military units to complete salt collection by mid-July. The ministry received reports on those efforts in late July and then reviewed them in mid-August,” a source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Sept. 1, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
Since military units were running low on fuel oil, the defense ministry had provided them with extra fuel from the reserves set aside for wartime use to support the salt collection efforts. In the review, the ministry severely criticized units that had not collected in the necessary amount of salt despite the extra support.
“This year, the defense ministry had ordered that experienced logistics officers be dispatched to collect a year’s supply of salt, but units failed to meet their salt targets once again this year,” the source said.
Experienced logistics officers were supposed to visit salt producing areas to personally assist the work crews and take ownership of the salt collection efforts.
To facilitate those efforts, the officers were expected to learn about the technical aspects of salt production in advance. But some military units dispatched staff who had not been adequately trained, earning a sharp rebuke in the ministry’s review.
“The defense ministry noted that it had provided units with fuel oil from the combat reserves to use in salt collection, but they only brought back three or four months’ worth of salt, instead of a year’s worth, as if they’d been on some kind of field trip,” the source said.
Review finds evidence of corruption
Another serious problem that the ministry found in the review was that some logistics officers had sold off portions of the meager amount of salt they had collected and then pocketed the proceeds, the source said.
In the review, the ministry claimed that some logistics officers had constantly griped about salt collection without showing any remorse or contrition and had even sold some of the salt they collected to purchase meat and alcohol for their personal consumption. The ministry’s review emphasized that those officers would be harshly punished.
The defense ministry’s review provided a detailed account of the problems that had occurred during this year’s salt collection, stressing that there will be no more salt rations this year and that military units will have to make up for a lack of salt through “self-sufficiency.”
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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