Public Sector Reform

Small Government Should Be Top Priority

It is very disappointing that President Roh Moo-hyun has rebuffed demands for a small, more efficient government. ``There is no need to adhere to a `small government,''' Roh said in a speech Friday. He indicated the government would continue to increase the number of public officials needed to provide services to the people. Roh's remark is not a surprise as it is an echo of the administration's pursuit of a big government.

He described the current dispute over the size of the government as consuming and fruitless, citing the need to create an environment where officials can work more responsibly. The Roh administration increased the number of civil servants by 57,000 over the past four years. The number of employees in state-run companies also soared by 12 percent during the same period.

As a result, the public sector has become larger and fatter with an additional cost of 5 trillion won in wages. But the productivity of the public organizations reaches less than half of the private sector. The Korea Economic Research Institute (KERI) recently claimed the next government should put a priority on policy reforming the public sector under the motto of small government. It said a small government will lead to greater efficiency and a bigger market with growing deregulation.

Lax management at public entities has been undermining growth in the private sector and preventing effective distribution of human resources and commodities. The current government has poured a huge amount of money for the promotion of social welfare and creation of more jobs, but failed to reap substantial benefits. On the contrary, the bi-polarization between the haves and have-nots has deepened. The government has stopped efforts for privatization of public companies, which had been pursued by the previous government. This compares with other Western industrial nations that have been gearing up for such a drive. A bigger government has resulted in more regulations and a waste of the national budget. In the process, the market has lost its vitality.

We hope the leading presidential candidates will focus on forming a `small but efficient government' as part of efforts to secure potential for future economic growth. It is also a shortcut to generating more jobs and promoting social welfare as seen in the cases of industrial countries in Europe. The current government has asserted the number of the nation's public officials is not huge compared with the average of member nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). But the people's burden for maintaining a big government is greater than major OECD countries. The government needs to bear in mind that the people are angry over the moral decay and spending sprees at many state-run companies.