65% of citizens believe Korean society is corrupt

By Kim Tae-jong

More than half of citizens here think Korean society and government officials are corrupt, according to a survey released Friday.

The survey was conducted by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission on 1,400 citizens and public servants and 700 businessmen here from Oct. 26 to Nov. 24 to measure their perceived levels of corruption in society.

In the survey, 65.4 percent of citizens said Korean society was corrupt, up from 51.6 percent last year, and 56.7 percent also said government office workers were corrupt, up from 54.1 percent.

A number of respondents were also critical of the government’s anti-corruption measures, saying they are not effective.

About 53 percent said they were skeptical of the government’s anti-corruption measures, up from 42.7 percent. And 27.3 percent also said there will be more corruption in the future, up from 17 percent last year.

The anti-corruption watchdog said more negative attitudes seemed to have been affected by a series of recent corruption cases involving politicians and businessmen.

The survey showed that young people took a more skeptical stance on the issue. Some 30 percent of those aged 50 and over said corruption cases will decrease in the future while only 20 percent of those aged 49 and below thought so.

As major culprits, 56.6 percent of the respondents cited politicians and 23.3 percent blamed high-ranking government officials.

The survey also found about 3 percent of citizens had offered gifts or bribed local government workers to receive favors while 6.7 percent of businessmen had done so.

In the survey about the government’s transparency on its policies on business activities, 27.1 percent of businessmen polled handed out a failing grade.

As a reason, 43.2 percent of them cited unfairness in the process of making policies and 25.8 percent said there were too frequent changes in policies.

Based on the survey results, the anti-corruption watchdog will request the legislation of a special law to fight corruption, root out the influence-peddling culture and protect whistle-blowers.

In a related move, they will strengthen anti-corruption education programs and launch campaigns with an anti-corruption center opening next year in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province.

According to Transparency International, South Korea ranked 43rd among some 180 surveyed countries in the Corruption Perceptions Index this year, receiving 5.4 out of 10, and came in 27th among the 34 OECD member countries.