By Jung Sung-ki
Staff Reporter

The incoming administration has decided to reduce the number of government ministries and offices to 12 or 15 in a bid to create a smaller but more efficient government, a spokesman for the presidential transition committee said Sunday.

The current government has 18 ministries and offices and has often been criticized for being bloated. The Roh Moo-hyun administration added 95,000 new officials and 52 committees to the government.

A final downsizing plan will be unveiled in two weeks after President-elect Lee Myung-bak reviews several draft plans, spokesman Lee Dong-kwan said.

Under the draft plans, the presidential office will become more powerful than now and the three deputy prime minister posts at the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, and the Ministry of Science and Technology will be abolished, Lee said.

``The committee drew up about 10 draft plans for government reorganization in a report given to the President-elect Saturday'' the spokesman said. ``We will reorganize the functions of ministries and offices in line with global trends. The deputy prime ministers' system is also to be scrapped.''

Despite the slim-down, the number of civil servants will be frozen, at least for the time being, he said.

Lee added a plan to restore ministers for political affairs without portfolio is one of the options to help facilitate cooperation between the presidential office and the National Assembly. The post was removed by the Kim Dae-jung administration in 1998.

The draft plans call for the scrapping of the Government Information Agency and downsizing the Prime Minister's Office as well as the Education Ministry.

The team is also looking into proposals to integrate economic policymaking, supervision and budget planning, which is currently spread out across the Finance Ministry, the Ministry of Budget and Planning, the Financial Supervisory Service and others.

Mergers between the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Gender Equality; the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries are other options.

The fate of the Ministry of Unification is still unclear after proposals for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to absorb it.

gallantjung@koreatimes.co.kr