[Editorial] Operating on Public Agencies

It looks like the national government and is going on another surgery operation on state-run corporations and other public agencies. The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) is going on a massive audit of 226 public agencies and that it will last until the end of next year, and the Ministry of Planning and Budget is working on restructuring plans.

We fully agree with the need to do some critical thinking about the nation's public agencies and to perform surgery on them. There have long been loud calls for reform, but the chronic loose and easygoing management and moral laxness remains the same. Lately some of them are becoming a financial burden for the country after being too deeply influenced by market thinking and going in an excessive pursuit of profit, and you see times when they involve themselves in enterprises left and right only to suffer losses. The indiscriminate creation of subsidiaries and unjustified support for them is worthy of being called attempts to imitate jaebeols. Typical examples would be how the land corporation earned massive profits from putting together public building land, and how the rail and highway corporations each got involved in oilfield development and the Haengdam Island development project respectively. You're just shocked to learn that the rail corporation built eleven subsidiaries last year. Public agencies are not places designed for executives to eat off of and create new positions. Ultimately the financial burden ends up with the people.

The key is responsible management and having the right management evaluation system in place. Parts BAI finds to be problematic should be cut away, and fundamental management reform plans need to be found. Fixing existing structures, however, won't solve all the problems. For example, open hiring of state corporation presidents was an attempt at improvement, but it just ended up being a means for "parachuting" and did not achieve the desired effect. The Ministry of Planning and Budget wants to create a "public agency management commission" with participation by private individuals in order to streamline the appointment of executives and to do performance evaluation, but that, too, will ultimately depend on whether operations are transparent. Government officials need to begin by keeping from going to unreasonable lengths to get their own people in desired positions. The commission is at risk of becoming a massive power unto itself and public agencies could lose more of their autonomy. The advantages and disadvantages should be looked at carefully, and there should be no further loss of spending because of trial and error.

The Hankyoreh, 10 October 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]