Korea pushes steps to prevent graft　

Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn speaks during a press conference at the Seoul Government Complex on Tuesday. (Yonhap)Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn on Tuesday announced the launch of a state-led anticorruption drive, pledging to preemptively cut out factors that may lead to corruption in government-funded projects and organizations.

The four segments of the plan to root out corruption are: real-time monitoring of massively large-scale projects such as defense acquisition programs; risk-management of large government funds; active information sharing related to the projects; and enhancing internal audits of related organizations. 

“Anticorruption measures of the past were based mostly on clamping down and punishment of crimes, which makes it impossible to prevent the damage occurring from such acts. ... By taking appropriate measures beforehand, we will be able to prevent the waste of state budgets,” said Hwang during a briefing at the Seoul Government Complex.

Government programs in 16 sectors worth a total of 240 trillion won ($198 billion) will be subject to the Prime Minister’s Office-led anticorruption drive.

Projects that will be monitored in real time include: 5.3 trillion won in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics; 5.9 trillion won in the creation of a science business belt in Daejeon; and a social overhead capital project worth about 12.7 trillion won. Social overhead capital refers to basic public services such as transportation and electricity that allow for the functioning of productive activities.

Despite Hwang touting the plan as a drive to root out corruption, its effectiveness remains to be seen as the monitoring process will mostly be conducted by government officials instead of outsiders.

According to the PMO, the Office for Government Policy Coordination‘s state-project management team will oversee the monitoring, while separate teams will be launched to supervise massively large-scale projects such as the PyeongChang Winter Games preparation. But such teams will be comprised of government officials from related ministries.

Whether insiders will be able to objectively monitor wrongdoings remains to be seen, as the Anti-corruption & Civil Rights Commission of Korea’s annual integrity scale on government bodies in December divulged a mismatch between the corruption level evaluated by insiders and those outside the organizations.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination for example, received an integrity score of 8.26 by its officials, but garnered 7.73 from outsiders.

The monitoring system will also be applied to defense acquisition programs “to prevent budget leaks and increase military capacity,” officials said. The government is currently mulling whether to appoint a senior prosecutor as a defense project supervisor -- a director-level post under the Defense Acquisition Program Administration chief -- to rein in corruption.

Last year, prosecutors indicted 63 former and incumbent military personnel in its probe into arms deals, including former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Choi Yoon-hee, former Navy chief Chung Ok-geun and former Patriots and Veterans Affairs Minister Kim Yang.

Hwang added that the government will enhance the risk management team’s capacity. The team will be headed by a director-level official, and will expand participation of outside experts.

Boosting asset management capability is mainly aimed at aiding the country’s postal service, which manages some 105 trillion won. It handles the second most state funds after the National Pension Service, which manages over 400 trillion won.

The PMO added that sharing information related to government subsidies will prevent people from unlawfully receiving state benefits, such as unemployment compensation.

Officials said that successful implementation of the project is expected to save about 5 trillion won in government budgets.
 
By Yoon Min-sik (minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com)

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