A woman walks by gas meters in Seoul, June 30. Korea raised electricity and gas rates in July. Korea Times file

By Lee Kyung-min

A number of employees of debt-ridden state-run energy firm Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) have stolen almost 7 billion won worth of electricity over the past five years by manipulating metering equipment.

The theft came to light as KEPCO already finds itself in financial trouble, with an operating loss for the first half of the year estimated at around 14 trillion won ($10.6 billion), according to market watchers, Tuesday.

Data from WiseReport, a financial data provider, estimated KEPCO's operating loss for the April-June period to be 5.35 trillion won. This is less bleak of an outlook than the 6.2 trillion won operating loss projected by Hana Securities.

Hana's figure together with the state-run entity's first-quarter operating loss of 7.78 trillion won raises the total up to 14 trillion won.

Hana Securities said the recent increase in KEPCO's electricity prices tied to raw material and power-generation costs is unlikely to offset spiking global commodity prices.

Adding to the mismanagement of corporate financials is its lax supervision of employees and power substations regarding electricity theft.

Data submitted to Rep. Rho Yong-ho of the ruling People Power Party from KEPCO showed a combined 6.8 billion won worth of electricity was stolen on over 3,105 occasions from 2017 to 2021.

The amount stolen was the highest at the headquarters in Incheon (1.06 billion won), followed by Gangwon Province headquarters (997 million won), northern Gyeonggi Province headquarters (612 million won), Busan-Ulsan headquarters (572 million won) and North Jeolla Province headquarters (527 million won). Between 43 million won and 461 million won worth of electricity was stolen at other regional headquarters.

One KEPCO employee manipulated the electricity meter at a place of business run by his wife to receive free electricity for five years.

Another employee was found in 2018 to have received unmetered electricity for 11 years and nine months at his home. But he was only suspended from work for three months.

KEPCO's staggering losses were due largely to policy missteps of the previous Moon Jae-in administration, but few would have known that morally bankrupt employees of KEPCO enabled by its lax energy resources management added to the problem, said the lawamaker.

"The public should not bear the brunt of KEPCO's wrongdoings. Stern measures should follow to fundamentally eradicate the longstanding problem."

KEPCO said it will work to prevent further electricity theft. "We will continue to strengthen audits and in-house investigations to better prevent employee misconduct and irregularities at our substations," a KEPCO official said.