Cooperation between Local Authorities and ACRC Gains Momentum toward area-specific anti-corruption policy

Marking the one-year anniversary of the seventh popularly elected local self-governing bodies, the ACRC on July 3 held a ‘meeting of audit and inspection officials in upper-level local governments’

July 3, 2019

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

Marking the one-year anniversary of the seventh popularly elected local self-governing bodies, area-specific anti-corruption policy implementation gathers momentum to eradicate corruption and irregularities deeply rooted in local areas.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Pak Un Jong) on July 3 held a meeting of audit and inspection officials in upper-level local governments at the Government Complex in Seoul, in order to diagnose the current status of corruption rooted in local areas and discuss ways to improve the level of transparency and integrity in local administration.

The attendees discussed policy measures to prevent local corruption in the meeting. More specifically, the attendees talked over various measures, including: ▲ countermeasures against local subsidy fraud (Gyeongsangbuk-do), ▲ measures to strengthen regulatory power of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act (ACRC), ▲ measures to increase transparency and reinforce management/supervision in the field of construction (Jeollanam-do), measures to enhance integrity in local councils (Gangwon-do), and also shared what they need to cooperate in relation to the anti-corruption policy to be implemented later on. Gyeongsangbuk-do province plans to strengthen its screening process for the selection of subsidy program operators in particular by reflecting the audit results of subsidies into the performance evaluation of the subsidy programs. In addition, Jeollanam-do province will preemptively disclose the information of construction work, and additionally provide ‘outreach integrity consulting services’ through which various opinions on the spot of construction works can be heard, as well as conducting the post-factum audit and inspection as before. Gangwon-do province has amended its relevant ordinances to prohibit local council members from holding concurrent offices, to require clarification of reported items, and to strengthen the examination process regarding overseas business trips by members of a provincial assembly.

After the new administration was launched, it has been making strenuous anti-corruption efforts with strong will to eradicate various irregularities deeply rooted in Korean society, including by establishing and managing the president-presided anti-corruption policy consultative council, formulating and announcing the Five-Year Comprehensive Anti-Corruption Plan, and actively responding to many pending corruption issues such as hiring irregularities in public institutions, etc. all these efforts ultimately made it possible for Korea to rank 45th out of 180 countries in the global ranking in the 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index published by Transparency International, up six notches compared to the previous year with its score hitting a record high. Moreover, the integrity levels of public institutions improved for two years in a row.

However, the integrity levels of local governments have been lower than the average of public institutions in recent years. In addition, even after the launch of the seventh popularly elected local self-governing bodies, some types of local corruption and irregularities including employment-related corruption, subsidy fraud, and overseas business trips for the purpose of travelling abroad rather than performing duties, and moral hazard by local council members were found to remain.

[Changes in the Score of Comprehensive Integrity]

The 2019 survey of public officials in nine lower-level local governments that are subject to the integrity consulting service provided by the ACRC showed that 44% of the survey respondents think they are affected by nepotism and favoritism in the workplace, which indicates that corruption-causing practices still exist in lower-level local governments.

[How much are you affected by nepotism and favoritism at your work?]

It is critical to improve the integrity levels of local governments in order to enhance the national integrity level continuously in the years ahead. To this end, the ACRC will strive to eradicate local corruption and irregularities caused by personal political connections or links and to support local governments’ voluntary anti-corruption efforts in a bid to spread a culture of integrity throughout the region.

(Prevention of subsidy fraud) the ACRC will prevent the leakage of public funds by addressing corruption-causing factors through the whole-of-government approach.

※ The Act on the Prohibition of False Claims of Public Funds and Recovery of Illicit Profits (the Illicit Profits Recovery Act) will be put in force starting January 1, 2020.

(Addressing vulnerabilities to local corruption) the ACRC will review the implementation process of institutional improvement tasks related to such areas of duties as personnel management, budget planning and execution, issuance of licenses or permissions of various kinds, which are especially vulnerable to corruption, and will request each of the local councils to legislate recommendations for institutional improvement for which the enactment and revision of the ordinances are required.

※ The implementation status of major recommendations by each local government, including measures for more transparent management of local government’s administrative consultative council charges (Aug. 2018) and measures for more strict fulfillment of the integrity obligation of civil service employees, other than civil servants, working in the local administrative bodies (Aug. 2018) is to be reviewed.

(Establishment of a culture of fair employment in local communities) the ACRC will conduct a thorough post-factum monitoring of hiring irregularities detected through its exhaustive investigations into the employment practices of local public institutions in 2018 to prevent recurrence of such irregularities, and will review the implementation of measures recommended by the ACRC to improve the employment system of local public institutions so that such measures can be faithfully reflected into the internal personnel-related rules and regulations of the local public institutions.

※ Establishment of the common standard for determining disciplinary punishment for public institutions’ hiring irregularities, restriction on mitigation of punishment for hiring irregularities, introduction of advance consultation system for employment planning, reinforcement of accessibility to public institutions’ employment data, etc.

(Reinforcement of ethical norms of the public sector in local provinces) the ACRC will support the public sector in local provinces in incorporating the new institutions established under the Code of Conduct for Public Officials and the Code of Conduct for Local Council Members, which were revised in 2018, into the Code of Conduct for each local authority and will continue to monitor the operational status of such institutions.

※ Improvement of practices of sponsoring public officials that are against the purport of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act, and support for the enactment and revision of the Codes of Conduct for Local Governments and Local Councils

(Enhancement of integrity awareness of local public officials) the ACRC will support the local councils in gaining trust from the public by means of newly creating customized integrity training courses suited to local council members and offering special courses for them.

※ Establishment and management of “Integrity Training Course for Local Council Members,” and review of the progress made by local councils in their integrity training

(Proliferation of cooperative integrity consulting system) the ACRC will operate the integrity consulting system in conjunction with the upper-level local authorities to diagnose vulnerabilities existing in the lower-level local authorities and share know-how and improvement measures so that transparency and integrity levels of lower-level local governments can be enhanced.

※ the ACRC will provide integrity consulting services to lower-level local governments that are grouped based on their level of integrity in cooperating with the upper-level local governments.

The chairperson of the ACRC, Pak Un Jong said in the meeting, “It is time to step up our efforts to improve integrity by looking back on the policy implementation process and the overall progress made in the fight against local corruption over the last one year,” calling on the auditors from the 17 upper-level local governments who attended the meeting to join forces to bring the level of integrity up to scratch, as the seventh local self-governing bodies marked its first anniversary.