Former National Assembly member Yi Cheol has been chosen to be the president of Korea Railroad and former Cheong Wa Dae press chief Yi Hae Seong has been selected to be president of the national mint, the Korea Minting and Security Printing Corporation. Both are men who have never worked in the fields they will be responsible for. It is hard not to believe that they are being given those positions as political gifts, both having lost as ruling party candidates in the National Assembly elections in April of last year.
Cheong Wa Dae says that the head of state corporations and government agencies are government appointments, and that since people are being appointed for sharing the same political philosophies as president Roh Moo Hyun there is nothing the matter. Still, there are limits assigned to the presidents appointment authority. The process of having National Assembly approval or Assembly hearings and the commission responsible for formally recommending the heads of state corporations are all in place to prevent those posts from being handed out for political payback. These particular appointments have gone through the proper procedures, but you doubt whether they adequately reflect the spirit of those procedures.
There has long been controversy over "parachute" appointments to state corporations. The Participatory Government has also named many politicians who lost elections to be executives at government corporations. It actually explained that politicians are better at pushing reform. But there is no guarantee that entrusting something to a politician makes reform happen. When they lack expertise it becomes hard to set goals and directions for reform. There have been more than a few cases where the results have been negative, with those politicians forgetting about reform and instead seeking favor from the employees there and taking things easy.
What state corporations and government agencies need are capable managers. Being a politician does not of course mean that you are not a good manager. But if positions are going to be filled with outsiders when there is no reason to believe they are the right people for the jobs in question, then the government needs to ask whom within those organizations will ever advance their knowledge and worry about the direction of reform. If there is going to be reform at state corporations the government needs to stop thinking about executive positions as political rewards.
The Hankyoreh, 24 June 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Those Appointments Won't Help Reform |
