(image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — It has been six months since the Winter Olympics ended on a high note in Pyeongchang, but business operators that installed temporary facilities for use during the Olympic Games are on the verge of going under as they still haven’t been paid.
On August 22, over 30 men gathered together in front of the office of the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic & Paralympic Games.
The men, owners of 50 subcontractors that provided grandstands for use in stadiums, had been waiting more than five months for funds to be wired to their bank accounts.
After not being paid the funds that they were owed for their services, the heads of the companies came together to create a committee.
They held a press conference last week, demanding to be paid for the work that went into producing, installing and dismantling grandstands between March and June of this year.
The committee members said that they had contributed to the success of the Olympics “by working in freezing temperatures under intense weather conditions.”
According to the committee, the subcontractors have not been paid even though more than five months have passed since the Games ended.
The committee is asking for additional payments totaling 10.7 billion won, which arose when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) asked the Korean organizing committee to change the original layout of the stadiums.
The PyeongChang Organizing Committee, then, hired the subcontractors to make the necessary changes. The sudden change incurred an additional 8 billion won in costs.
With companies being owed 2.7 billion won for original construction fees, the total of the outstanding bill stands at 10.7 billion won.
The subcontractors claimed that “significant sums had gone into producing and supplying the grandstands, but because of unpaid dues, both employees and their employers alike are on the brink of bankruptcy.”
Meanwhile, the PyeongChang Organizing Committee has refuted the claims, saying that the additional costs are “unacceptable,” as they represented a significant departure from the contracted amount.
With the gap between both parties continuing to widen, the Korea Fair Trade Mediation Agency is trying to strike a deal between both committees.
H. S. Seo (hsseo@koreabizwire.com)
