Dear editor,
I am writing in response to a March 13 editorial, ``Mice in the Warehouse." I deeply sympathize with the condemnation of the officials' tax ``pilfering," lack of consciousness about what has gone wrong and a very sloppy internal auditing system.
As an educational official, who has managed her sound life with clean hands, I cannot accept this whole deception and corruption from people with the same posts. It is a huge shame to even myself.
However, this is not the time for arranging all of the mistakes in a row and moaning about the problematic situation. Even now, some officials might be embezzling the valuable tax money which is supposed to go to the handicapped and needy, without morality or remorse.
We should search for the most significant and severe cause of the whole problem and trace them at source. Then we could work out a realistic and feasible plan to rectify this bad situation.
Therefore, the problems have mainly originated from the government and they should offer the solution. If the situation is bad enough, the government should increase the number of officials in charge of the social welfare system.
According to a survey in 2005 by a researcher at the Ministry of Health and Welfare, one Korean social welfare official has been in charge of 6,725 people. This number is three times more than Japan (2,142), and nearly 10 times more than Britain (708) and Australia (789).
The workload in the field of social welfare system has been growing tremendously, but the government is provided with a very limited labor supply. In this situation, they can hardly regulate their business connections or transactions.
Also, it would be so hard to validate it, even if irrational behavior is committed.
If the government increases the number of officials in charge and narrows the gap between the labor supply and demand, they will be able to develop a more sophisticated business process, and the audit system will be followed in a more precise and professional way.
Officials are people who have been assigned by the government. It means the government has the definite responsibility for organizing and cleaning up their household matters.
Other than that, people will never forgive or forget the mistakes with the tax money which they have paid.
Sun Duk-keum
Teacher
Gyeonggi Province