By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter
President Lee Myung-bak said that existing regional administrative units should be streamlined to better meet the needs of the 21st-century nation.
``The current regional administrative structure was designed more than 100 years ago," Lee remarked during his televised town hall meeting Tuesday night from KBS studio in Seoul.
Lee said these administrative units were designed at that time to address the needs of agrarian communities in the country. ``They no longer meet the needs of our communities in this modern, 21st-century digital era."
The President cautioned though that any reform effort should be free of political influence and that the initiative should be reviewed by non-partisan academics and analysts. Lee's comments suggest that he may be favoring establishing an advisory body to help design a new regional administrative structure.
Leading lawmakers have made calls to streamline regional administrative units in recent weeks. On Tuesday, the main opposition Democratic Party (DP) formally proposed to the governing Grand National Party (GNP) that the lawmakers jointly set up an ad hoc committee to discuss the idea.
Last month, an influential political figure from the GNP, Rep. Huh Tae-yeol, spoke out in favor of initiating such a reform. Huh, a member of the GNP's decision-making Supreme Council, had proposed that municipalities and counties in regional provinces and districts in major cities should be merged into some 70 city units to help boost administrative efficiency.
Huh noted last month that putting state-level public administrators at small regional units is an ineffective use of government resources.
He also observed that the arrangement may have been appropriate when the country was progressing through its ``developing-nation" stage but that now, it is no longer useful.
Huh said streamlining regional offices and withdrawing state-level officials from small administrative units would also help give local governments more autonomy and power to address regional concerns.
Prominent lawmakers from opposition political parties appear to be on the same page on this issue. DP Chief Policymaker Park Byeong-seug also champions merging and streamlining regional administration units.
The top official at the Ministry of Public Administration and Security has also jumped on the reform bandwagon. Minister Won Sei-Hoon said during a National Assembly committee meeting Monday that he would support the initiative.
He said his ministry staff haven't yet reviewed the idea in any detail. ``If the National Assembly formally proposes the streamlining effort, we would support it wholeheartedly."