Lee Min-hyung joined The Korea Times in 2014 and has worked as a journalist mainly in Korea’s finance, tech and automotive industry. He specializes in content creation, breaking news and in-depth analysis currently on transportation and mobility. You can reach him via mhlee@koreatimes.co.kr.
Korea to step up anti-corruption drive
By Lee Min-hyung
These are questions and answers from an interview The Korea Times and its sister paper, Hankook Ilbo, conducted with Park Un-jong, chairwoman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC). ―
ED.
By Lee Min-hyung
Park Un-jong, chairwoman of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission
Q: This May marks the second anniversary since the Moon administration took office. Could you evaluate how well the government has carried out its anti-corruption policies over the past two years?
A: Anti-corruption reform has topped the list of the state management for the past two years. The Moon administration started these efforts amid hopes to build a transparent society. For this reason, I think anti-corruption reform is the calling of the times. To meet public expectations, we have overhauled anti-corruption policies across the country and eradicated many unfair practices on public demand. One noteworthy achievement can be a restoration of anti-corruption systems in government agencies. We have improved related laws, corrupt hiring practices and the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). But there still remains much to be desired over whether an anti-corruption culture has settled down across society.
Q: What is the role of the ACRC when dealing with the issue of corrupt hiring practices?
A: My view is that corruption in recruitment has a lot to do with the credibility of state-run organizations, so the issue must be discussed. With the Moon administration entering its third year, what is important is to create substantive changes that the public actually feels. Anti-corruption policies need to take root across the society, so the public can actually feel that society has become more transparent. To do so, we have picked nine projects related with anti-corruption, such as the eradication of university admissions corruption, tax evasion, receiving government subsidies in an illegal manner and corrupt hiring practices. On top of that, we are coming up with legal measures to prevent civilians from providing gifts to government officials.
Q: President Moon pays attention to the CPI. Could you elaborate on the index?
A: Transparency International, a Berlin-based nongovernmental organization, releases the CPI of 180 countries across the world annually. In February, the organization unveiled the 2018 CPI, and South Korea received three more points in the index, compared with a year ago. (The nation scored 57 points out of 100 on the 2018 CPI, ranking 45th of 180 countries.) I think this is a positive signal in that the nation's CPI had remained in a range of the early to mid-50s for the past five years. The 2018 index, however, served as a turning point for upward momentum. I know that the figure is still not sufficient to meet the public's expectations, but we are going to continue the anti-corruption reforms.
Q: South Korea is getting better scores in the index, but the nation's figure stands at a low end among OECD member nations. South Korea ranked 30th among 36 OECD member countries in the 2018 CPI. What kind of efforts do we need to make to drive up the ranking?
A: The country has had an institutional infrastructure to prevent corruption. But there have been loopholes in terms of the actual implementation of the policies and institutions on the spot. We need to make continuous efforts to do so. In Korea, anti-corruption policies have been carried out with the focus on public officials and the public sector. For this reason, some businesses still engage in an act of providing illegal kickbacks. We need to come up with measures to improve the remaining corruption problems in the private sector. What we need is to make transparency a daily part of our lives. Institutions alone cannot solve the problem, but society should make overall efforts, such as education reinforcement on the issue. The media should also pay more attention to it.
Q: What is your take on the so-called Kim Young-ran Act?
A: We are in the third year since the nation introduced the anti-graft law. I believe the law has served as a major turning point to spread transparency across society. This has brought an overall paradigm shift in the society where gift-giving culture was taken for granted. The law has particularly targeted public officials, but its introduction enabled people from all walks of life to reflect on the issue. The law helped the public view corruption as something to be eradicated. We conducted a survey on 3,000 people, and most of them were in favor of the law. About 80 percent to 90 percent of them welcomed the act. My view is that the anti-graft law has taken root as part of the daily norms in our lives. Of course, some people make ill use of the act, but we are making efforts to improve vulnerable parts of the law in an institutional manner.
Q: Do you have any plans to vitalize public interest disclosure to root out corruption issues in officialdom?
A: In Korean society, there is a blind spot where some brave whistleblowers' privacy is not protected. In most cases, whistleblowers are under an unfair disadvantage largely because their private data is leaked after they expose some information deemed illegal or unethical. To protect their privacy, we are going to toughen legal penalties on those who leak private information of whistleblowers. On top of that, we will come up with measures to punish those who give directions to find the whistleblowers.