Conflicts of interest rife in moves from state body to work at big firms
Over the past five years, some 105 former officials in powerful government departments such as the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the National Tax Service, and the Board of Audit and Inspection have found jobs at the country’s top five business conglomerates. Their number is surely much larger if you count the officials who are not regulated by laws on employment after working for the government. There is nothing fundamentally improper about high-ranking public servants taking their experience and expertise to private companies. The problem is the level of corruption and improper collusion between government and big business. Despite the current ethics law placing restrictions on how these former officials can be employed in private business, the methods some former officials use to evade the law are becoming common practice. The biggest problem is that the law is full of loopholes. Currently, the law prohibits a former official from working in an area in which he or she was responsible less than five years prior. The companies officials cannot work for are defined only by the amount of capital stock held and how much business the firms do, meaning that most new companies and law and accounting firms - which hold some of the greatest need to lobby the government - are exempted from regulation. And there is no way to go after someone who gets a job at a research center run by a big conglomerate, then moves directly to the relevant section of the same conglomerate. The standards for determining what is prohibited are clearly too lax. Primary responsibility for determining whether a government employee is going to work in a "related" field in private industry lies with the head of the government agency for which an individual has been working. It is too much to expect high-ranking officials to actively prevent their people from moving to prominent positions elsewhere. It has become common practice at the financial supervisory agencies to put those nearing retirement in positions that will allow them smooth transition into the private sector. Additionally, the law says nothing about determining whether judges and prosecutors are working in related areas, so essentially they can go where they please.The guidelines for ethics committees throughout the government are too soft to be able to weed out the use of such loopholes. These committees can only find work to be "related" when someone has been "directly involved in the issuing of permits and approvals or overseeing such duties," and only once in the past three years has any committee found any of these such instances to be a problem. As of this year, most government offices are required to have these committees, which ironically has meant that officials now have the legal means to slip through the loopholes and find themselves jobs at the big conglomerates. The Korea Independent Commission Against Corruption recently said that it will be seeking ways to fix the problems inherent in the current laws and guidelines. The National Assembly, for its part, needs to widen the scope of government departments and private businesses that are regulated by these laws, and revise the legislation so that it takes into account the particularities of each area of work and expertise. We have to prevent the possibility of illegal lobbying and the improper collusion between government and big business. Among other reasons, this is necessary to be able to put the diverse experience and expertise of retiring public servants to good use.
