It has emerged that Seoul City held more than ten on-site meetings with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport regarding construction on the Samseong Station section of the Metropolitan Express Railway (GTX)-A line, yet did not disclose that Hyundai Construction had omitted rebar. As the city failed to tell the ministry about the missing rebar despite several face-to-face contacts, criticism is growing that Seoul City may have sought to conceal it.

According to a document obtained on the 19th by the Kyunghyang Shinmun through the office of Democratic Party lawmaker Ko Min-jung, titled ‘Record of on-site visits by Seoul City, Korea National Railway, and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport after November 10, 2025’, Seoul City, the client for the Samseong Station project, and Korea National Railway, the commissioned agency, together with the ministry held twelve inspection meetings at the Samseong Station construction site from January 29 to April 25.

Records show that after recognizing the rebar omission, Seoul City conducted a ‘crack inspection’ on January 29 together with ministry officials and external experts. Even then, the ministry's working-level lead for Metropolitan Express Railway construction and, on the city side, the general manager overseeing the Yeongdong-daero Complex Development Project attended, but the rebar omission was not reported.

In particular, on March 31, a ‘joint inspection’ by Seoul City and the ministry was carried out. It was a gathering of a little over ten people, including working-level officials from the ministry such as the Director General for Rail and the head of the Metropolitan Express Railway Division, as well as Seoul City working-level officials such as the head of the Yeongdong-daero Complex Development Promotion Team and the general manager overseeing the Yeongdong-daero Complex Development Project.

A ministry official who attended the meeting said by phone, “We did not hear at all (from Seoul City about the rebar omission).” Korea National Railway also stated, “Although we conducted on-site inspections with Seoul City and the ministry during that period, Seoul City did not directly report the serious defect even once.” On April 25, a ‘final inspection before train deployment’ was conducted, but Seoul City still did not disclose the rebar omission.

Putting the situation to date together, Hyundai Construction, which first recognized the rebar omission on October 23 last year, reported it to Seoul City by email on November 10 of the same year, and Seoul City reported the rebar omission to the ministry on the 29th of last month, six months later.

Seoul City countered that it intended to notify the ministry after receiving a reinforcement work plan from Hyundai Construction.

A Seoul City official said, “We simply thought it was proper to notify the ministry after receiving a reinforcement plan from Hyundai Construction; we judged that notifying them without even establishing countermeasures for the incident would not be appropriate.” The official added, “It was only a matter of timing for the notification; it was not an attempt to hide or cover this up.”

Statements by Seoul City officials also differ on when the city became aware of the rebar omission, fueling suspicion. Im Chun-geun, head of the Seoul City Urban Infrastructure Headquarters who oversees the Samseong Station project at the working level, attended a plenary session of the National Assembly Public Administration and Security Committee on the 18th and answered that the time when he first became aware of the rebar omission was “around March, as I recall.” However, according to a document obtained by the Kyunghyang Shinmun titled ‘Site-visit plan for the Yeongdong-daero underground space complex development project’, Director Im visited the Samseong Station construction site on January 16 to encourage site personnel and conducted an on-site inspection.

Rep. Ko said, “If the head of the headquarters in overall charge of the Samseong Station project received a report on a serious construction defect such as the rebar omission but did not report it to Mayor Oh Se-hoon, that is an even bigger problem,” adding, “We must thoroughly determine whether citizen safety was disregarded and the case concealed in order to bolster the standing of candidate Oh Se-hoon.”