ACRC announced 2019 work plan

March 13, 2019

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

On March 13, at the Government Complex Seoul in 2019, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Pak Un Jong) gave a briefing on its 2019 work plan which was reported to the President in writing on February 24.

Chairperson Pak Un Jong of the ACRC stressed that the commission’s first priority in 2019 is protecting people’s rights and interests to the fullest by removing improper privileges and unfairness in everyday life, such as hiring irregularities and power abuse, and by spreading the practice of providing active administrative service throughout the public sector.

The ACRC will put its focus on ending everyday life irregularities, a task critical to ending unfairness and injustice which run counter to citizens’ heightened level of expectations and ethical standards. The ACRC will make utmost efforts to make achievements in this anti-corruption task so that people could experience the benefits themselves.

As part of such efforts, the ACRC will first root out hiring irregularities resulting in a skewed playing field.

To that end, the ACRC will inspect the entire public agencies on their hiring practices every year.

If any irregularity is found, the ACRC will transfer the case for investigation and at the same time will protect victims by having them immediately employed or giving them an opportunity to reapply for employment.

Second, the ACRC will eradicate improper solicitations and power abuse which cause unreasonable burdens for citizens.

The commission will discover risk areas prone to corruption such as abusing power through job solicitation and receiving money in the form of donation and sponsoring, disguised as legal activities. The ACRC will then streamline relevant ordinances and bylaws.

In particular, by providing mobile power abuse anonymous counseling service which is linked to famous social network sites, the ACRC will enable victims to receive counseling service on and report their case with ease anytime anywhere. In addition, by protecting their personal information as strongly as those of corruption reporters, the ACRC will block any possibility of them suffering damages afterwards.

Third, the ACRC will legislate conflict-of-interest prevention system to prevent public officials from seeking personal interests, undermining public interests.

The system will comprehensively manage conflict-of-interest situations so that public officials could carry out their duties uprightly without engaging in a situation where they might use public office and authorities to seek private interests.

Along with such efforts to tackle corruption in the public sector, the ACRC will also try to end corruption in the private sector to realize a corruption-free nation. To this end, the commission will develop a corruption measurement index that can comprehensively assess a nation’s integrity level, called the National Integrity Index (tentative name).

The National Integrity Index will first assess integrity levels of 10 industries including infrastructure, construction, finance, and insurance and will present a direction towards an integrity society. This will encourage the private sector to voluntarily improve its anti-corruption efforts.

The current Integrity Assessment assesses public organizations only, so it is difficult to figure out integrity level of the private sector. Moreover, the Corruption Perception Index of the Transparency International measures only subjective perception on corruption, making it inappropriate to be used for the establishment of anti-corruption policies which should be objective.

So, the ACRC decided to develop a national integrity index to measure both perceptions and experiences on corruption in the public and private sector, accurately diagnosing corruption level in the entire society. The ACRC expects that it can introduce the National Integrity Index in anti-corruption discourses by international gatherings such as the OECD and G20.

In order to prevent public officials’ passive response and action, which cause the delay of permit and license issuance, the ACRC will progressively promote public officials’ proactive responses to citizens’ requests, leading the protection of people’s rights and interests.

When it comes to frequently filed complaints on such as land compensation and tenement houses, the ACRC will find and remove the root causes through fact-finding survey and institutional improvement.

The ACRC will also create a menu in the e-People to receive a reporting on public officials’ passive response. Reported cases will be investigated and addressed by the audit division of the agency in concern. This could prevent the practice of giving the same answers by the division that caused the complaint.

As for collective complaints which involve multiple agencies making it difficult to produce conflict-free solutions or ending up remain unresolved for a long time, the ACRC will handle them by actively cooperating with related authorities.

To be specific, the agencies concerned are encouraged to request for ACRC’s mediation, then the ACRC will aggressively handle the complaint by pulling together its capabilities of complaint investigation, onsite mediation, and correction recommendation.

The ACRC will also push the implementation of Collective Complaints Mediation Act to preemptively and systemically handle collective complaints.

Through the On-site Outreach Program and On-site Business Grievance Hearing, filed-centered complaint handling efforts will be also expanded.

ACRC’s on-site outreach program will make on-site visits to areas suffering consistent employment and industrial crisis and listen and resolve grievances of self-employed people there. ACRC’s on-site outreach bus will go to traditional markets and small markets in remote areas.

Joint Government Complaint Center will be set up to provide comprehensive counseling services to complainants, saving their time and money in lodging complaints.

Those who had complaints related to multiple agencies found it difficult to lodge their complaints, because they had to contact the each and every agency involved to receive counseling on their complaints.

To help remove such difficulties, the ACRC will establish Joint Government Complaint Center and operate a Complaints Mediation Council, so that the complaints involving multiple agencies could be consulted and mediated at one setting.

The ACRC will faithfully fulfill all of these plans to make people feel the benefit of enhanced integrity and will stand in the front line in providing active administrative services to resolve difficulties of citizens, enhancing public trust in the government.