◀ Anchor ▶
We have reported that KEPCO is paying penalties of up to several million won to farmers who use agricultural electricity without clear standards.
However, it was revealed that a KEPCO employee secretly entered a farmer’s house where no one was present and even searched the warehouse.
Reporter Lim Ji-eun covered the story exclusively.
◀ Report ▶
This is the front yard of a farmhouse farming honey in Gurye-gun, Jeollanam-do.
A man enters the empty house and opens the warehouse door.
After a while, I take pictures of the inside of the warehouse with my smartphone and leave the house.
And 30 minutes later, a phone call came from the landlord, a beekeeper.
He was a KEPCO employee.
[백춘기/구례군 농민]
“I got a call from a KEPCO employee. But since I’m out there, he told me to come the next day…”
However, a day after the call, I was hit by a penalty bomb of 7 million won.
It is said that the agricultural electricity used in the low-temperature warehouse was unfairly used, and a carton of citron tea and a box of milk on one side of the warehouse were taken as a problem, saying that they were not agricultural products.
[백춘기/구례군 농민]
“There was no official letter, and there was no word like that. I have to pay 700 (ten thousand won).
However, the KEPCO employee did not say that he entered the house without permission and took pictures.
[박 철/변호사]
“If a visitor arbitrarily breaks into a dwelling without seeking the cooperation of the landlord, opens the warehouse door, and checks whether an object is present, there is a possibility that a home invasion has been established.”
There is no penalty fee standard.
When the penalty was too high, the penalty was reduced from 7 million won to 700,000 won.
From trespassing to rubber band penalties.
Farmers complain that KEPCO’s crackdown on agricultural electricity is now close to tyranny.
Banners were hung everywhere in Gurye criticizing KEPCO for imposing penalties only on powerless farmers.
KEPCO said it is verifying the truth about the farmhouse trespassing controversy.
Video coverage: Park Jae-wook (Gwangju)
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