ed Launch of Sejong City

Politicians should not make irresponsible pledges

After a decade of wrangling, Sejong City was launched Monday at an inauguration ceremony amid expectations and anxieties. That Prime Minister Kim Hwang-shik, not President Lee Myung-bak, led the ceremony shows the complicated nature of the “mini-capital,” which is officially called the Sejong Special Autonomous City.

Although Kim said he will do his utmost to overcome anticipated inefficiency arising from the division of the government, the outlook for the administrative city is not that bright.

Located some 150 kilometers south of Seoul, Sejong City will be home to 17 government ministries or commissions and 20 other agencies. The Prime Minister’s Office will be the first to relocate in September, followed by the ministries of finance, and agriculture, land and fisheries, and the Fair Trade Commission. These government bodies will move to Sejong by 2014 and more than 10,000 civil servants will go there along with their offices. Yet the presidential office of Cheong Wa Dae, the National Assembly, judiciary bodies and foreign and defense ministries will stay in Seoul.

The launch of Sejong is meaningful in that it could contribute to easing excessive population concentration in the capital and metropolitan area. In fact, more than half of the country’s population is concentrated in Seoul, Incheon and Gyeonggi Province where 80 percent of central government units, 83 percent of state company headquarters and 91 percent of the top 100 businesses are located. The consequences are difficulties in seeking homes and jobs and chronic traffic congestion in the metropolitan area.

No less meaningful is that Sejong will serve as an occasion to experiment with a new public administration system since it won’t be divided into counties or districts with the single metropolitan government handling all administration within its jurisdiction.

However, anxieties abound, too. Most worrisome is the inefficiency the split in government could cause. The division of ministries between Seoul and Sejong City entails lengthy travel time between the two locations, creating a lot of inefficiency, confusion and slow decision-making.

Another concern is that most civil servants will leave their families in Seoul and return home on weekends owing to the lack of leisure and education facilities. In this case, it would be hard to expect the effect of the population being distributed.

Last but not least, there is skepticism about the prospect that Sejong will accommodate half a million people by 2030 as a self-sufficient city because of the lack of incentives to attract businesses and research institutes.

As is widely known, Sejong was the by-product of political gambits from start to end. It was conceived by the late former President Roh Moo-hyun as part of campaign pledges in 2002 to woo voters in the Chungcheong provinces.

With less than six months remaining before the Dec. 19 presidential election, populist hopefuls are moving to obtain political gains from the administrative city by pledging to actually make Sejong a capital city. All politicians should refrain from making such sugar-coated pledges.