By Do Je-hae
Public officials are breaking the law for giving outside lectures, a survey showed Tuesday.
Rep. Shin Hak-yong of the main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy (NPAD) said that some ministry officials are making more than 600,000 won per lecture. The payment exceeds the amount that public officials are allowed to make giving outside speeches, as stipulated in Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) guidelines.
Korea's main anti-corruption agency researched the number of outside lectures conducted by ministry officials ranked over grade five. It found that there were 36,560 lectures in the last three years, with the officials collecting around 11.2 billion won. The ACRC supplied the research to Rep. Shin, a member of the National Policy Committee of the National Assembly.
The ACRC report only lists earnings from the lectures that were reported to the anti-corruption agency. "The earnings will probably be much higher if we were to count the lectures that were omitted in the ACRC study," Shin said in a statement. “The ministries involved are urged to adhere to the ACRC rule."
The ACRC's guideline prohibits a minister from making more than 400,000 won per lecture. A vice-minister is to receive 300,000 per lecture. Officials at grade four and five (director and assistant director levels) are supposed to get 233,000 won.
The report showed various cases of guideline violations.
A director of the Land, Infrastructure and Transport was found to have made 1,800,000 for three lectures at university, in addition to transportation fees.
Officials of the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on average made 540,000 per lecture.
"We found that officials serving in the so-called powerful ministries were making more money through lectures than their peers in smaller organizations," Shin added.