Government–Company–Civil Communities To Drive Forward with Anti-Corruption Round Table

Regarding the presidential fund corruption situation, the prosecution and the police have recently started to watch the concerned companies. On November 19, the Federation of Korea Industries (FKI) declared to drive forward the “Government–Company–Civil Communities’ Anti-Corruption Round Table,” attracting a lot of public attention. FKI suggested its intention of setting up this round table when it unveiled the “2004, 3 Important Theme and Five Core Business projects for Fixation of Ethical Management Custom” plan.

The round table will clarify the process of governmental procurement, license and authorization processes, in order to prevent corruption at the first stage. As for the political fund, FKI suggested to the political world to discuss a new fund contribution system when the contributor (Company) and the beneficiary (Political) meets.

In order to carry this out, FKI also suggested forming committees within the round table such as the “Special Committee for Political Fund,” the “Special Committee for Anti-corruption of Government,” and the “Special Committee for Anti-corruption of Enterprise.”

FKI has also decided to propel the joint projects with the government agencies related to inspection, license, and authorization fields such as the Ministry of Finance and Economy, the Ministry of Construction and Transportation, the Board of Audit, and the Inspection and Korea Independent Commission Against Corruption.

This suggestion attracts a lot of public attention because it shows the business world’s intention of touching on public corruption issues such as bribes to government officials and providing illegal political funds. So far, the business world has concentrated on an “Ethical Management Plan” to deal only with “Civil Corruption” such as prohibiting corruption between employees and keeping up a transparent business custom with the cooperative companies.

“In recent times, companies have been suffering from the prosecution’s investigation of the illegal political funding,” remarked Kuk Sung-ho, the chief of Ethical Management Team of the FKI, adding, “In order to prevent these cases from occurring again, it is necessary to improve the fundamental structures. That’s why we have suggested a three-way joint talk session.”

On the other hand, FKI also has designated three core themes for ethical management: setting up the national and social infrastructure for ethical management and anti-corruption, materialization of ethical management, and enhancing the CEOs’ recognition of ethical management. In order to follow through on this, they also consented to carry out the five core business projects: forming a government (including congress) – company – civil communities’ anti-corruption round table, bringing up the employees in charge of the ethical management drive, setting up the ethical management practicing program, exerting joint efforts for ethical management with the cooperative companies, and enhancing the CEO’s recognition of ethical management.

Jong sik Kong kong@donga.com