Government organizations involved in this year’s deadly sinking of the ferry Sewol scored relatively low in the annual integrity scale, the state-run anticorruption watchdog said Wednesday.
“The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries, Korea Shipping Association and other organizations involved in the Sewol incident scored very low in our annual Integrity Assessment, leading us to believe that the sinking and the results of the corruption evaluation are related,” said the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission.
In a briefing held at Seoul Government Complex, the ACRC announced the results of its annual survey on levels of corruption among government bodies. A total of 640 government bodies were sorted into four categories: central government bodies; institutions directly related to the government, such as public corporations; regional governments; and education offices.
These were then subcategorized according to their sizes and were sorted into five groups, with Group 1 being least corrupt. A total of 253,819 individuals participated in the survey; 176,081 were outsiders who have worked with the organizations, 56,701 were government officials, and 21,037 were employees of civic organizations, local residents and experts in related fields.
That the Oceans Ministry fell into the fourth group, and was the second-most corrupt out of central government organizations with 2,300 members or more, with a score of 7.03 out of 10. The National Tax Agency was deemed the most corrupt large government body with a score of 6.71.
The average score was 7.78, a decline from 7.86 the year before.
ACRC said the Sewol incident in April, which left over 300 dead or missing, may have affected the results, which showed insiders’ perceptions of corruption had decreased. “The Sewol incident may have incurred an explosion of discontent among people who had tried to hide the corruption,” an ACRC official said.
While the Oceans Ministry received low scores from affiliated outsiders and regular citizens, it scored very high ― fourth among institutes in its group ― in terms of evaluations from its officials. This, however, appears to be a result of pressure from those within the ministry.
According to an ACRC official, the Oceans Ministry received a 0.06 point penalty for applying pressure on its workers to give it a favorable evaluation. Since the penalty for most groups ranged from 0.01 to 0.03, it seems that the ministry went out of its way to make sure it was not badmouthed by its employees.
The least corrupt among the largest agencies was Statistics Korea, with a score of 8.02. The provincial government with the most integrity was Gyeonggi Provincial Government at 7.66, and Sejong City Office of Education took the title of cleanest agency among education offices at 7.94
Osan City in Gyeonggi Province, Gangdong-gu in Seoul and Inje-gun in Gangwon Province were found to be the least corrupt city, district and county with scores of 8.06, 8.22 and 7.96, respectively.
The Defense Acquisition Program Administration and Cultural Heritage Administration were determined to be most corrupt among smaller central government bodies, with scores of 6.97 and 6.93.
The ACRC report also found the percentage of people who offered money or services in exchange for favors more than doubled to 1.7 percent from 0.7 percent in 2013. These were among the main forms of corruption along with misuse of government funds and unlawful instructions to subordinate officials.
By Yoon Min-sik ()
minsikyoon@heraldcorp.com
