In Celebration of the Second Year of the Moon Jae-in Administration, the ACRC Pushes forward the Five-Year Comprehensive Anti-Corruption Plan without Hiccups, Cementing the Foundation of Pan-government Anti-corruption Reform

The Second Half of the Year Focuses on Drafting the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Prohibition of False Claims for Public Funds and Recovery of Illicit Profits, Enacting Conflict of Interests of Public Officials, and Removing Unfair Acts or Privilege in a Daily Life

May 14, 2019

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

2 years after the Moon Jae-in Administration launched, the foundation for anti-corruption reforms including Anti-Corruption Policy Consultative Council and Public-Private Council for Transparent Society was set up and the Five-Year Comprehensive Anti-Corruption Plan is being implemented smoothly.

In addition, the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Prohibition of False Claims for Public Funds and Recovery of Illicit Profits will be prepared in the second half of the year, to be enforced in January next year together with the Act, and the enactment of Conflict of Interests of Public Officials will be pushed forward.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Pak Un Jong), in celebration of the second year of the Moon Jai-in administration, assessed performance of its major policies so far and reviewed where it should head from now.

The Moon Jae-in administration took off with tasks one of which was to meet the strong expectation of the people who aspired for a country which guarantees a fair opportunity to everyone, without unfair acts or privilege, or other irregularity.

For the task, the ACRC, reorganized as anti-corruption control tower, established Anti-Corruption Policy Consultative Council and Public-Private Council for Transparent Society to secure the foundation for comprehensive and systematic government-wide anti-corruption reforms. Anti-Corruption Policy Consultative Council is chaired by the President and participated by 15 member agencies including the ACRC and the Ministry of Justice while Public-Private Council for Transparent Society consists of 30 representatives of six sectors of the society, including the public sector, economic circle, and civil society organizations.

The government and the ACRC hold regular meetings of the two councils. Through those meetings, they established and are implementing Five-Year Comprehensive Anti-Corruption Plan with 4 strategies and 50 tasks including eradication of hiring irregularities, and strengthening of business accounting transparency.

First, to facilitate the institutionalization of anti-corruption policies, the ACRC enacted the Act on Prohibition of False Claims for Public Funds and Recovery of Illicit Profits (to be effectuated in January 2020) which is to impose sanction surcharge of up to 5 times against false or excessive claims as well as to recover illicit profits, setting the legal ground for preventing the budgetary leakage.

The Commission also added new provisions under the Code of Conduct for Public Officials, on duties of reporting private interests, prohibition of improper solicitation made to the private sector, etc. to prevent the conflict of interests of public officials.

Furthermore, the ACRC inspected all aspects on recruitment practices of public organization, detecting 182 cases of hiring irregularities, and has improved relevant systems to prevent recurrence of those practices, including preventing of reduced sanction of violators, specifying recruitment process and criteria under by-laws, and duty to publicize number of recruited relatives of executive officers or employees of public organizations on its web-site.

The ACRC complemented the interpretation criteria for the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, preventing the support of foreign business trips for duty-related public officials by supervised agencies, to improve improper sponsorship practices of foreign business trips.

With an aim to remove unfair acts or privilege in a daily life, the ACRC made 49 cases of institutional improvement recommendation. As one of such examples, parents and college applicants had many complaints because the standard to calculate college application fees was not transparent and colleges spent the fee income on promotional expenses. Thereby, the ACRC recommended relevant authorities to prepare a guideline to calculate college application fees and to specify the execution criteria for promotional expenses.

As a result, application fees for 4 year colleges starting for 2018 admissions have decreased by around 15 % and in last August, the guideline to calculate college application fees and its execution was established.

As another example, with huge budget spent on commissioning public policy research, 52.6% of research results were not disclosed, lacking the transparency of research process. Therefore the ACRC recommended relevant authorities to prepare research service management rules and to expand the disclosure of the serviced result. Public organizations at various levels are now improving this matter.

In addition, while universities receive annual budget of 12.9 trillion won from the government, many of them lack an independent internal audit body to guarantee the public interest. The ACRC recommended mandatory establishment of an internal audit body within universities with assurance of its independence.

Other than the activities above, the ACRC amended the Act on the Prevention of Corruption and the Establishment and Management of the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (enforced since Feb. 2018) to punish anyone who disclosed or indicated a whistleblower’s identity without consent of the whistleblower.

Moreover, to fundamentally block identity leakage, the ACRC amended the Act on the Public Interest Whistleblowers (enforced since Oct. 2018) to include the provision of anonymous reporting through a lawyer.

The amount of monetary awards provided to reporters increased from 113 cases of 2.1 billion won in 2017 to 166 cases of 3.1 billion won in 2018, the highest record amount. The acceptance rate of whistleblower protection measures also showed an increasing trend from 52.4% in 2017 to 58.6% in 2018.

Thanks to such corruption prevention efforts of the past two years, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index ranked Korea 45 with 57 point in 2018, a sharp increase compared to the 2016 ranking of 52 and score of 53. The Public Sector Integrity Assessment score also increased from 7.85 in 2016 to 8.12 in 2018.

The ACRC will push forward to enact laws to strengthen enforcement of institutions to prevent conflict of interests of public officials, and to prepare the Enforcement Decree of the Act on Prohibition of False Claims for Public Funds and Recovery of Illicit Profits, while implementing 5 Year Anti-Corruption Plan without hiccups.

In addition, the Commission will conduct a complete enumeration survey of public institutions on hiring practices every year and try to remove unfair acts or privilege in a daily life, including enhancing the transparency of multi-family housing management and black-out damage compensation process.

The ACRC is also planning to expand the laws subject to public interest reporting by inspecting remaining 1,200 acts, excluded from the reported laws.

The ACRC will develop a national integrity index model to make a precise diagnosis on corruption level of the society including the private sector and actively participate in relevant discussions among international communities such as OECD and G20.

Chairperson Pak said, “with the goal to 20s of CPI ranking by 2020, the ACRC will make efforts that the result and changes of anti-corruption reforms could be felt by the public in their lives.”