Abusing Incentives
Veterans Ministry Officials Slammed for Illegal Practice
It was shocking to learn that Chung Il-kwon, the vice minister of the Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs (MPVA) earned the status of ``person of merit'' by falsely reporting that he injured his back while working in his office. After winning the status, he received various benefits such as cash compensation and jobs for his offspring at state-run companies.
The Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) detected this illegality and vowed to embark on full-fledged investigations into similar suspicious cases. There are allegations that many public officials have falsified their performances records to win various kinds of incentives. Chung brazenly ordered his subordinates to ``keep the press off'' after his case was revealed by the BAI.
Owing to Chung's status, his son and daughter landed jobs at public enterprises without taking tests in 2004 when Chung was heading a division in charge of assessing qualifications for the status. The four officials who provided Chung with the status were all from the MPVA. Chung managed to receive 14.5 million won in education fees for his children and other expenses for them before they were enrolled in the state-fun firms.
The MPVA is supposed to take care of independence fighters and their offspring, soldiers, policemen and their bereaved families who died or suffered injuries in protecting national defense. But due to a shortage of money, the government has failed to provide sufficient assistance, and many of them have been suffering from financial hardship. It is deplorable that Chung, who served at the MPVA for 30 years, has pilfered the money that should have gone to the real ``persons of merit.''
The BAI is to be applauded for having intensified probes into such cases with planned investigations on 92 former MPVA officials who garnered the ``persons of merit'' status. We urge the BAI to further gear up such a purge in officialdom and the MPVA to come up with a stricter assessment system to prevent such cases recurring.
People are very disappointed to witness a series of corruption cases involving high-ranking public officials. The arrest of Jeon Goon-pyo for bribery was all the more shocking as it was the first case entangling a current commissioner of the National Tax Service. It is an unimaginable scenario for which President Roh Moo-hyun should have extended a deep apology to the public. Fresh allegations that prosecutor-general nominee Lim Chai-jin was often bribed by the Samsung Group is also a bombshell for the Roh administration. Additionally, the President's former chief policy aide Byeon Yang-kyoon is now standing trial for his role in a ``sugar-daddy'' scandal in which he embezzled the state budget for his young lover.
Roh has boasted of morality as the proudest point of his ``participatory government'' in his counterattack on criticism for its alleged lack of careerism, which led to poor state administration. With a series of compounding irregularities, however, some critics are scornfully describing the current government as a ``corruption republic.'' It appears Roh has nothing left to boast of with the looming termination of his tenure.