Korea raises profile in anti-graft campaign

Lee Sung-bo, chairman of the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC), delivers a keynote speech during the OECD Integrity Forum in Paris, Wednesday. The two-day forum took place at the OECD Conference Center through Thursday. / Courtesy of ACRC

Top Seoul official delivers keynote speech at OECD Integrity Forum for1st time

By Yi Whan-woo

Korea is expanding its presence on the global stage amid the international community’s growing efforts to root out corruption.

Lee Sung-bo, the chairman of the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC), delivered a keynote speech on the country’s new anti-graft law at the third OECD Integrity Forum in Paris Wednesday.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a group of 34 developed and industrialized countries, including Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Australia and Japan.

Some 200 delegates from 90 nations, including non-OECD member states such as Brazil and Peru, attended the two-day forum that ran through Thursday at the OECD Conference Center. The theme of the forum was “Curbing Corruption — Investing in Growth.”

According to the ACRC, which operates under the Prime Minister’s Office, Lee was the first Korean national to deliver a keynote speech at the annual OECD forum.

“OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria personally asked Lee to deliver a speech about Korea’s anti-graft law,” the ACRC said.

“Gurria’s offer shows that the international community’s interest in our anti-corruption efforts has been growing.

“Lee especially attracted attention at the forum when he explained how and why Korea came up with the new law.”

Lee made his speech during a trip to France and the U.K. this week. He is also scheduled to discuss the law at the Korea-U.K. Anti-Corruption Seminar in London Friday, before returning home.

The legislation is aimed at rooting out corrupt ties between the government and business.

The government has faced growing calls to take strong measures against bureaucratic corruption in the wake of the Sewol ferry disaster on April 16 last year.

The underlying cause of the country’s maritime disaster was attributed to the ship owner’s corrupt ties with safety regulators and government officials, which led to the total disregard of safety measures to maximize profits for the ferry service.

The National Assembly passed the bill on March 3 and it will take effect from September 2016.

In his keynote speech, Lee underscored that the law will be effectively implemented.

“Currently, the anti-corruption policy is promoted as a national priority in the Korean government as a whole,” he said.

“I will make utmost efforts to uproot the corruption problem in Korea by ensuring the successful implementation of the new anti-corruption act.”

The forum was designed to find new approaches to prevent, detect and sanction corruption amid growing awareness that corruption undermines the benefits of public and private investment, according to the OECD.

Lee also underscored that Korea’s much-touted legislation is expected to reshape its society, which has lost trust in the government despite the country’s rapid economic growth and political democratization.

“It is true that Korea’s anti-corruption efforts have shown tangible results since the enactment of the Anti-Corruption Act in 2001,” he said.

“Yet, Korea is not reaching the integrity level that is on par with the country’s economic development and democratization.

“I am convinced that a series of moves to fight corruption, including the enactment of the new act, will contribute to solving fundamental causes of corruption in Korean society.”

Lee also put aside worries that the sweeping law may infringe upon journalistic freedom and individual rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

Proposed by former ACRC chairwoman Kim Young-ran in 2012, the initial bill targeted officials in government offices and government-affiliated organizations, such as state-run enterprises.

They will face criminal charges if they receive money, valuables, treatment or services worth at least 1 million won ($904). Punitive measures will be taken regardless of whether the money or goods were given in return for favors or not.

Concerns have risen that the law may be unconstitutional and infringe upon individual freedoms because journalists and private school teachers were also later included in the targeted groups.

“Some people argue that the act is radical, considering Korean culture, and does not take practices of Korean society into account,” Kim said. “They voice concerns that the act would not be as effective as expected.

“As a matter of fact, the aim of this new act is not to seek changes within the existing corruption-prone culture and practices. Instead, the act is enacted to fundamentally redesign the framework of Korean culture and practices that cause corruption.”

The 200 delegates at the forum were high-ranking government officials, business leaders, civic activists and scholars. They included: William Danvers, OECD deputy secretary-general; Matthias Fekl, France’s minister of foreign trade; Giovanni Kessler, European Anti-Fraud Office director-general; Raffaele Cantone, Italy’s Anti-corruption National Authority president; Fuad Khoury Zarzar, Peru’s comptroller general; Joshua Drew, vice president and associate general counsel for ethics & anti-corruption at Hewlett-Packard; and Corinne Lagache, vice president of trade compliance and export control at Safran Group.

The forum was comprised of four plenary sessions, plus smaller meetings. The first two sessions took place on Wednesday and the remainder on Thursday.

The participants at the first session identified and discussed the key tools to mitigate the risks of corruption in investment.

In the second session, the panelists explored ways to prevent certain groups of people with power from influencing the public investment process for their own interests.

In the third session, the participants exchanged views on effective preventive mechanisms to promote transparency, efficiency and good management in the governance of infrastructure investment.

In the last session, the participants took lessons from the discussions in the previous sessions and outlined the key elements of a strategy to curb corruption in investment that could be put forward collectively by the public and private sectors and civil society.

Korea and the U.K. will hold their second joint anti-corruption seminar in London, Friday.

The first seminar took place in Seoul in December under the Korea-U.K. Anti-Corruption Partnership Initiative, which was launched in April 2014. The initiative is aimed at sharing and comparing the anti-corruption policies of Seoul and London. The one-year initiative will run through the end of this month.