By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter

The administration will evaluate the integrity of some 2,000 senior officials in government and at public firms beginning next year, and make public their rankings in a bid to root out corruption in officialdom, the head of the presidential anti-corruption body said Tuesday.

"We have to upgrade the ethics standards for public officials to meet growing public demand for a clean society," Lee Jae-oh, chairman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, told reporters.

"Such efforts are crucial for Korea to raise its global competitiveness and become an advanced country."

The commission plans to hold regular meetings with prosecutors, state auditors, tax officers and police officers to share information on corruption cases, said Lee, a close aide to President Lee Myung-bak.

The government will work with private institutes to develop a quantitative integrity evaluation system.

The integrity of more than 470 government agencies and public firms as well as 2,000 senior officials will be measured under the system, the chairman said.

The commission has announced transparency rankings of state-funded organizations, ministries and provincial governments annually, but they were mostly based on public surveys.

Last year's poll showed the Korea Electronic Power Corporation garnered the highest overall transparency score of 9.52 out of 10 with Korea Railroad placing second with 9.31. Of government offices, Seoul City ranked sixth with 9.08 points.

According to Transparency International, Korea ranked 40th among 180 countries surveyed in the 2008 Corruption Perception Index.

With a maximum score being 10, Korea hit the bottom with 3.8 in 1999 and has seen a steady improvement every year, reaching 5.6 in 2008.

"We will check the integrity level of every single public organization and senior official and share the data with the public. We think that's the only way to build a clean society," Lee said.

jj@koreatimes.co.kr