Inappropriate Personnel Worsened the Disaster

As the investigation of the Daegu Subway Arson Disaster progresses, the total insolvency of the general personnel and management situation of the Daegu Subway Corporation (Yoon Jin-tae, 63, President) is being revealed.

It is being revealed that an unprofessional person took the chair of the top manager out of nowhere, and the responsible people for the practical affairs only concentrated on reducing expenses but ignored the safety of the passengers and training of the employees, which were actually more important.

▽Personnel=The President Yoon, who took the chair on last July, had worked as the Public Information Officer of the City of Daegu and as the Assistant District Leader of the Soosong-Gu, and he worked as the president of a amusement park before taking this position. He has no relationship with subway business. The former Presidents of the Daegu Subway Corporation were also retired public workers, who worked as officers of the City of Daegu, so they were very far from professional managers. The first and second Presidents were the Head of the Planning and Management Team of the City of Daegu.

Kim Jong-goo, who is controlling the actual operation of the Corporation, `came down` as the executive director last week while working as the Chief of the General Affairs Division of the Daegu Subway Construction Headquarter. He is also pointed out as an unprofessional person for the subway management.

The annual salary of the President of the Daegu Subway Corporation is around 70 million won. On top of the annual salary, about 50 million won of execution expense is being offered. And also a 2000cc-class car is provided for the President.

The employees of the Subway Corporation pointed out about the personnel system of the City of Daegu, “Since the City of Daegu is sending the retired public workers of the City as the Presidents of the Subway Corporation, the City is basically out of business mind.”

They are saying that they must entrust it to the professional managers as long as the financial situation is bad, but the `personal affairs out of nowhere` can make the management much worse.

▽Operation and Finance=The personnel of the Daegu Subway Corporation at the time of foundation in 1995 had been 1,520, but it was reduced to 1,396 on January 1999. Now it is 1,299. It is short as many as 97.

The current debt of the Daegu Subway Corporation is 1.3 trillion won. The construction debt is 920 billion and the operation loss is 370 billion won. As the subway runs, the loss is getting bigger. The operation loss in 2001 was 40 billion won. It was as much as 35 billion won last year. The Corporation only predicts that if the constructing Line #2 is completed in 2005, then the passengers are increased, and the loss can be reduced, but it does not have good ideas to reduce the loss at this point.

Since the financial situation is bad, all the management policies are concentrated on `reducing the expenses` rather than securing the safety of the passengers. The number of passengers per day had been reduced to 135,000 in 2000 from 150,000 in 1998, and it kept the level of 145,000 last year, so there was no significant increase.

The Executive Director Kim said, “The Corporation has no ability to pay back the construction debt,” and “if the Central Government support to that, and the Line #2 is completed, the business will be better.”

▽Reaction of the Union=The Daegu Subway Corporation Labor Union announced a statement on the 24th and criticized the management staff, “The management staff, which put up the business efficiency first by way of excuse, is also showing the irresponsible measures by putting all the responsibilities of this incident to the working-level.” The Union officers insisted, “It is an old-fashioned thinking that the City of Daegu is controlling the personnel of the management staff of the Subway Corporation,” and “to make the personal affairs of the management staff clear is the first step to reforming the Daegu Subway Corporation.”

In the meantime, the Daegu Subway Corporation won the Safety Grand Prize at the evaluation of the public corporations done by the Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency on last December.