Cheong Wa Dae chief of staff Kim Woo Sik and the rest of the president's council on high-level nominations have accepted responsibility for and submitted their resignations over the nomination and subsequent controversy over Lee Ki Jun, Deputy Prime Minister for Education and Human Resources Development. President Roh Moo Hyun says he wants to take time to think about things before he takes any action on the matter. It is only natural that there be official censure of those responsible, however, because the problem originated with poor state of Cheong Wa Dae's system for selecting people for high position, and in this case it was the people involved in that process who were particularly a problem.
From its start the current government promised transparent personnel management and said one of its main endeavors would be a five-step system of nomination, assessment, and verification. When it came to Lee, however, there was no prior thorough verification of the facts regarding the various suspicions about him, and when new suspicions surfaced, Cheong Wa Dae gave explanations that were not factually accurate and was anxious to protect him. It would be hard to make sense of such a faulty verification process. The resulting criticism was, therefore, that this was either a case of personal favoritism or that he had been so chosen for the job that there was never any substantial verification.
There has to be a swift and detailed inquiry into the faulty process and those responsible need to be held responsible. The inquiry needs to look into whether the nomination council headed by Kim was operating properly and whether Prime Minister Lee Hae Chan exercised his authority to appoint members of cabinet having amply reviewed the material submitted to him. If transparency was not maintained at the working-level, then the inquiry has to look into why people neglected their responsibilities. Ethical shortcomings are particularly lethally problematic for ministers of education, so the inquiry must ascertain why decisive grounds for exclusion were not at the forefront of the process when it came to Lee Ki Jun.
President Roh has apologized and promised to make improvements in how Cheong Wa Dae handles its people. He has to realize that the reason there have continued to be problems with the people appointed to high government position is because the principles the government talked about when it first began have since fallen apart. A typical example would be how expertise is placed above all other concerns, and ethics and reform awareness has been treated as a secondary qualification. The reason that has bee the case is that affairs of state have been run based on a neo-liberal perspective. We call on the government to return to the state of mind it held when it began, and give serious thought to the whole of its philosophy on state affairs, not just appointment principles.
The Hankyoreh, 10 January 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] Correct Problems in Govt's Appointment Process |
