The South Korean government launched a new ministry in charge of national safety on Wednesday amid growing concerns over whether retired generals with no field experience in disaster response are qualified to lead the country’s new emergency control tower.

President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday named former Navy Adm. Park In-yong as the nation’s first minister of public safety and security and former second vice minister of the now-defunct Ministry of Security Administration Lee Sung-ho as the No. 2. Lee is also a former three-star general who served in high-ranking operational posts in the 3rd Army Corps and a division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The main opposition New Politics Alliance for Democracy, however, raised concerns that having former military commanders lead the new ministry would make it rigid and ineffective when it comes to dealing with various types of crises.

“Former military personnel are used to following orders, and relatively (speaking, they) lack the ability to communicate and make quick responses,” said Rep. Jun Byung-hun of the NPAD, who chairs the special parliamentary committee on national safety.

“The judgment that the people’s safety can be secured by military operational tactics, is feared to cause another disaster,” he said.

Cheong Wa Dae called the minister-nominee an expert not only in military operations but also in human resource management, and said he is the “right man” to command the disaster control tower tasked with bringing all ministries together in the event of a state emergency.

Park’s office also introduced Lee as a general who had spearheaded a successful military rescue operation in 2011 that saved South Korean sailors held by pirates in the Gulf of Aden, off the Somali coast.

Despite the president’s confidence in the ex-military commanders, the opposition continued to insist that though they are experts in national security they are not capable of dealing with a disaster. The opposition party also vowed to conduct a thorough screening of the minister-nominee at the upcoming parliamentary hearing scheduled for Dec. 4.

After the nomination, the minister-designate must go through a parliamentary confirmation hearing. The process is by and large a formality as National Assembly approval is needed only for a prime minister, not Cabinet members, to take a post.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Chung Hong-won urged officials to intensify the government’s capability to deal with disasters in the future at a ceremony marking the launch of the Ministry of Public Safety and Security and the Ministry of Personnel Management. The two ministries were established under the Prime Ministers’ Office, as part of the government’s reform plan carried out in the wake of the tragic Sewol ferry accident in April.

Poor initial rescue operations and the government’s bungled response were blamed for the heavy death toll. More than 300, mostly students on a school trip, died after the ferry sank off the country’s southwest coast.

The incident also led to questions about the government’s personnel system. Critics say that the government has overlooked corrupt practices in officialdom enabling businesses like the operator of the Sewol to ignore safety measures or regulations. To eradicate such corruption, Park named former Samsung Electronics official Lee Geun-myun, an expert in human resource management at the country’s largest conglomerate as Minister of Personnel Management.

“Taking a lesson from the painful accident of the ferry Sewol, (the ministry) should greatly improve antidisaster capabilities,” Chung said.

The ruling Saenuri Party also praised the launch of the Safety Ministry saying that it would integrate separate countermeasures to tackle the confusion in the government’s response to various types of disasters.

“A new framework has been established that will be different from before the Sewol crisis,” said Saenuri spokesman Rep. Park Dae-chul.

“(The new ministry signifies) that we are standing at a new starting line to depart from an ‘unstable past’ to a ‘safe future.’”

By Cho Chung-un (christory@heraldcorp.com)