ACRC Actively Promotes Improvement of Irrational Internal Regulations of Public Institutions Closely Related to the Public Livelihood

- On Sept. 23, ACRC held an auditors meeting to improve internal regulations of public institutions, and shared best cases of improvement while listening to opinions of policy beneficiaries -

September 23, 2020

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

A meeting was convened to share the best cases of improvement of public institutions’ internal regulations and listen to opinions of policy beneficiaries in order to remove corruption-causing factors in advance.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission held the Auditors Meeting to Improve Internal Regulations of Public Institutions at the Government Complex Sejong on Sept. 23 with standing auditors of public institutions in energy, airport and port, and traffic areas, auditors of public institutions with the best cases of improvement in internal regulations in the first half of the year, and policy beneficiaries attending.

Participants of the meeting shared cases of improved internal regulations identified by public institutions themselves and through the Corruption Risk Assessment (CRA) conducted by the ACRC and listened to opinions of policy beneficiaries.

The Korea Coal Corporation (KCC) introduced its regulation improvement to eradicate improper personnel practices through the CRA.

An employee fraudulently received relocation compensation by falsely registering his address in the course of selling the Corporation’s housing, but the disciplinary measure the personnel committee of the Corporation took was to merely “advise him to resign.”

In order to improve such unreasonable disciplinary measure, the KCC revised its internal rule, which allowed an employee to be relieved of his/her post at his/her request if he/she submits a letter of resignation, to reject the dismissal at his/her request if he/she committed corruption.

In addition, in the case of mitigation or exemption of disciplinary action that used to only require the deliberation by the personnel committee, the KCC reformed its relevant rule to make such mitigation or exemption disclosed to the public on its website.

The Busan Port Authority (BPA) also introduced its case of regulation improvement, including reducing the cancellation fee (penalty for breach of contract), which used to be of up to 70%, to half that amount and extending the refund period in the case of cancellation or termination of the facility use at the Busan Port International Convention Center.

On top of this, as part of its efforts to improve internal regulations, BPA also reduced the rental fees worth approximately 3.7 billion won for 17 shops operating business at the Busan Port International Passenger Terminal in order to ease the burden of shop operators as the number of passengers using the terminal rapidly decreased due to external factors, such as Japan’s trade restrictions against Korea and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Busan Transportation Corporation (BTC) introduced its unfair work practice improvement case, such as taking the decision-making authority away from the chairperson of the Corporation’s steering committee if the number of votes for and against is equal, in order to improve its operational transparency, and abolishing the refund fee for passenger fare and the cancellation fee for group tickets.

In the opening statement at the meeting, the ACRC called on public institutions’ officials to regard “passive administration” as “a form of corruption” and play an active role in establishing active administration in the public sector.

In addition, An ACRC Official said, “The best cases of public institutions’ internal regulation improvement shared at the meeting will provide us with an opportunity to cut off in advance unfair work practices and corruption-causing factors in public institutions closely related to the public livelihood and to actively identify and improve areas raising concern for passive administration.”