Seoul:Officials from a government agency responsible for the safety of educational facilities have been implicated in a scheme to fabricate an invitation for their chief to travel overseas, as revealed by the state auditor on Thursday.

According to Yonhap News Agency, the Korea Institute of Educational Facility Safety (KOIES) sought to justify an overseas training trip for its staff last year by creating a false document. This document purported to be an invitation from the Department of Education and Learning in Vantaa, Finland, inviting the agency's chief, despite no such invitation being confirmed.

A travel agency, whose identity remains undisclosed, was enlisted by KOIES to produce the falsified document. Subsequently, a KOIES official drafted another document based on this falsehood, suggesting that the Finnish agency had indeed invited the head of KOIES. This document was then submitted to the Gyeonggi Province Office of Education to secure budget approval for the trip, according to the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI).

During a parliamentary audit last year, a senior official from KOIES reportedly submitted a written statement claiming that the Finnish agency had inquired about the possibility of the agency's chief participating in the trip, further misleading the authorities, as per the BAI's findings.

The BAI has called for disciplinary actions against three KOIES officials. However, it has not been confirmed if the head of KOIES was directly involved in orchestrating the fraudulent scheme.