The Sung Woan-jong scandal is basically a case of bribery, in which a business tycoon, who was greedy enough to take a parliamentary seat as well, offered illegal money to politicians to buy their influence.

For now, the scandal is focused on Prime Minister Lee Wan-koo and some other politicians close to President Park Geun-hye. This is largely because the late Sung pinpointed them in what is seen as a personal vendetta against people who were in a position to ― but did not ― help him with the corruption probe into his construction company and himself.

By all indications, however, the ever-growing scandal is certain to implicate a larger group of people. Day by day, new pieces of evidence and statements are pointing to the involvement of more politicians, including opposition members.

Given Sung’s habit of managing his broad human network, we suspected that he had formed collusive ties with government officials as well.

So it was hardly surprising to hear that prosecutors secured a memo containing the names of a group of senior tax and financial officials who allegedly received kickbacks from the tycoon.

Previously, a memo containing Sung’s daily schedules showed that he met ― some frequently ― the chiefs of the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service, the head of Korea EximBank and other bank executives.

These meetings took place at a time when Sung’s firm ― Keangnam Enterprises ― was trying to survive a financial crisis.

Whether these and other people who were close to or bribed by Sung had exerted influence to allow his firm to be given as many as three “workout” debt rescheduling programs until last year has yet to be proven. But it really does smell fishy.

As a matter of fact, Keangnam, which was put under court receivership recently, had received loans totaling 1.3 trillion won even though it had been losing money and suffering from capital impairment.

Of the total loans, 520.7 billion won came from the state-run Exim Bank, with the rest from another state-run lender, Korea Development Bank, and major commercial banks like Shinhan, KB, Woori and NH. Only about 20 percent of these loans are expected to be recovered.

Regarding this, the Board of Audit and Inspection, which had already looked into the case, raised the possibility of wrongdoing by financial officials and bank executives, and sent its report to the prosecution in February. Both financial authorities and the prosecution ought to follow up on the findings of the BAI.

Another point that should be made regarding Sung’s efforts to keep his company afloat is that he was allowed to abuse his power as a lawmaker.

Sung, who was elected to the National Assembly in 2012, maintained his seat until last June. He sat on the powerful National Policy Committee, which supervises the FSC and the FSS, through which he could have exerted influence on banks.

This is an apparent violation of the rules on conflict of interest and blind trust. As the controlling shareholder of the construction company, Sung should have put his shares in Keangnam into a blind trust or sat on a committee that has nothing to do with his business interests.

Another problem exposed by the Sung scandal is the loophole in the Political Funds Law. In addition to the huge sums of illicit money he spread to influential politicians, Sung provided legitimate political funds to a larger number of lawmakers in both the ruling and opposition camps, but under the names of executives and employees of his company.

All these call upon the government, National Assembly and political parties to address problems in the rules on conflict of interest and blind trust for lawmakers and the lack of transparency in political financing.