As the trouble-ridden, scandal-marred confirmation hearings for President Park Geun-hye’s Cabinet nominees come to an end, another “unexpected” problem has arisen: a lack of professionalism among the candidates.
Voters saw a glaring example of this during a session of the National Assembly’s Oceans and Fisheries Committee Tuesday. Fielding questions from lawmakers aimed at testing her expertise, nominee, Yoon Jin-sook, mostly said, “I don’t know,” “I haven’t thought about it much,” or, “Now, doesn’t seem to be a good time to answer the question.”
Yoon, a marine environment expert, may not be expected to know every detail about the fisheries industry’s GDP or conditions at the nation’s ports. But people watching the session were truly puzzled when she snickered instead of answering questions from lawmakers regarding her strategies to develop the sector.
Her best and most sincere answer was, “I will study later if you approve me as the minister.” The public must have wondered: Are Cabinet ministers really supposed to make up for lacking knowledge while taking the taxpayer’s money? If the ocean and fisheries ministry has so little to do, why has Park revived it after five years’ absence? Does the new president really have such a small pool of talent to choose from?
The popular disappointment was all the more palpable not just because Yoon is one of only two female appointees for the 17-member Cabinet, but because Park once praised her as a “pearl hidden in the mud.” The president might greatly value Yoon’s story of personal triumph ― from graduating from a provincial college to becoming a scholar through hard work and study while supporting a mother stricken with Alzheimer’s disease. But a Cabinet minister should be, first and last, a specialist in their field.
Or he or she should at least try to be one. Yoon has failed to do this during the month and a half since she was nominated.
In another egregious case of unpreparedness, Choi Mun-kee, Park’s nominee to lead the newly-created Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, couldn’t even explain what the ministry’s core concept of “creative economy” means. All this shows that Park’s main ideas have not been embraced by those who should work as the president’s hands and feet, while illustrating the limitation of Park’s notorious “jotter appointments” ― naming people based solely on personal memos.
We hope such go-it-alone policy-making and secretive selection of people will soon end and be forgotten as initial fumbling, and give way to a systemic, consensual process as time passes.
Korea and Koreans can ill afford to watch such presidential trial-and-error for five long years.