Ministry Reform Efforts Come Up Short

The construction industry has failed to improve its regulations, and four major impact assessment systems have barely been carried out with less than 10 percent completion rates in the improvement of regulations for the software industry, industrial complexes and labeling and advertisement.

Only five government organizations--the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Labor, the Financial Supervisory Commission, the Small and Medium Business Administration and the Civil Service Commission--have implemented more than 75 percent of their planned strategic tasks.

The implementation rates of the ministries of Justice, Culture and Tourism, Information and Communication, and Heath and Welfare range from 25 to 50 percent. And the figures for the Ministry of Finance and Economy, Planning and Budget, the National Policy Agency and the Korean Broadcasting Commission are less than 25 percent.

Lawmaker Lee said, “While the Regulatory Reform Task Force has spent about 2.3 billion won from the reserve fund from August 2004 through 2005 and is planning to lay out additional 1 billion won in 2006, it has completed only one task from the 35 strategic tasks. This is sheer negligence of duty. We plan to request an inspection of the Office of the Prime Minister.”

On this, Minister Kim Young-ju of the Office of Government Policy Coordination said in a meeting of the National Policy Committee on that day, “The reason why we emphasized only one strategic task completed was to urge other government organizations to do more. That did not mean there has been no progress.” And he added, “But I admit that such progress has barely been felt.”

The Regulatory Reform Task Force of the Office of the Prime Minister was launched on August 27 2004 as a temporary agency with a two-year time limit to reform a variety of regulations which limit business activities

The task force is a pubic-private partnership composed of 26 public servants and 28 from the private side, and is headed by Park Chul-gon, Assistant Minister of Regulatory Reform at the Office for Government Policy Coordination.

Min-Hyuk Park mhpark@donga.com