The commerce department of Pyongsong’s people’s committee recently launched year-end financial inspections of local markets, Daily NK has learned.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, a Daily NK source in South Pyongan Province said Friday that Pyongsong’s commerce department “announced financial inspection criterion last month and has been conducting financial inspections on all markets in the city since Dec. 1.”
According to the source, the city’s commercial department’s inspection is focused on reviewing the yearly results of market management offices and determining if officials below the rank of office head have engaged in illegal activities.
The commerce department said it would compare how much in taxes — including market taxes — market management offices have collected against their annual quotas, exhaustively inspecting how much extra money they have collected. In particular, it warned it would determine whether market management offices have properly paid their market tax proceeds into state coffers.
The city commerce department also plans to determine precisely how well market officials have cracked down on anti-socialist and non-socialist activities and how many products they have confiscated.
Inspectors plan to examine instances where market management offices confiscated goods after busting market vendors for selling items pilfered from factories or secretly dealing in South Korean products, which are strictly banned, as well as vendors surrendering their booths after being caught openly selling illegal merchandise.
The commerce department said this year saw the worst levels of collusion between market grain sellers and the heads of local state-run grain shops to buy low-price grain at the state-run shops to resell at high prices in the markets. The department warned that it would get to the bottom of the problem.
“The city commerce department intends to resolve the issue because although market grain sellers have repeatedly raised market grain prices by illegally colluding with state-run grain shops, markets have been unable to control it properly, inconveniencing the public,” the source said.
The city’s commerce department said it would use the inspection to rank market management offices according to this year’s results and draw up a competitive chart based on the rankings that would, in turn, be used to evaluate the performance of market management office heads this year.
“Market management offices are nervous with the city’s commerce department warning office heads to prepare for dismissals, sackings or even reeducation through labor if the inspections uncover serious problems,” the source said.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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