Real reform must start with ending “parachute appointments”

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Category: General
Published on Thursday, 22 May 2014 06:18
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Posted on : May.21,2014 16:30

 

 

In her May 19 address to the public on the Sewol ferry sinking, President Park Geun-hye announced her plans to root out the so-called “government mafia.” She singled the group out as the rotten link in collusion between the public and private sectors - winking at each other’s behavior and looking the other way, while risking the public’s lives. But she did not say one word about the practice that has helped this “mafia” to flourish, namely the “parachute appointments” by which friends and supporters are unfairly installed in high places. Under the circumstances, it’s tough to believe Park is truly committed to reforming public officialdom.
One possible solution Park mentioned for the problem was stronger regulations on employment for retired government officials. She announced plans for vastly lengthening the list of barred institutions, and for introducing a career history announcement system for officials departing their posts. Her aim is apparently to cut off the mafia problem at its source. The prosecutors are also joining in: on May 21, they announced that they had held a meeting of chief prosecutors nationwide, under Prosecutor-General Kim Jin-tae, to classify different forms of government-private sector collusion in which the mafia is implicated, and embark on a simultaneous criminal information hunt and investigation for all the different types.
 
Since the Sewol tragedy, the government mafia has been singled out as a cancerous threat to citizen lives and safety. And, indeed, one of the causes of the sinking was the practice of hiring former Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries or Coast Guard officials at affiliated organizations after their retirement, which led to lax oversight. This link in the collusion chain definitely needs to be severed if future tragedies are to be prevented.

 

But a thorough reform of government, including public agencies, will take more than a mafia purge. Parachute appointments of politicians are every bit as serious a problem as those of officials at public agencies. Ruling party candidates nursing election losses, the associates of administration heavyweights, and even figures on the periphery are getting “rewarded” with major posts at these agencies. There’s been a veritable parade of them since Park has taken office.

 

According to data from the Alio public agency management information system, no fewer than 75 of the 153 public agency chiefs appointed since Park took office could be categorized as parachute appointments - nearly half. The largest single group, accounting for 33.3%, consisted of former bureaucrats, but 15.6% were figures from the ruling Saenuri Party (NFP) or associates of Park’s. As president-elect in January 2013, Park asserted that there would be “no parachute appointments at public agencies under the new administration.” It’s a promise that has proven totally empty.

 

Reforming the government and rooting out corruption is a difficult task, no matter who is in office. But it gets a lot harder when the person in charge of governance is merely talking about reforms while doing the opposite. At this rate, the public is only going to get angrier.

 

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