Agencies’ Power Decides Paychecks for Affiliated Organizations

It turns out that paychecks for chairs of government-affiliated organizations do not reflect their managing performances. What decided the salary was either how influential the governing agency is or how much they had been paid. Yoon Won-ho, lawmaker of the ruling Uri Party and member of House Steering Committee, revealed this based on analysis of last years`s annual salaries of 83 heads of government-affiliated organizations that are under the Government Affiliated Organizations Management Act (GAOMA).

The salaries range from 63 million won (Busan Transportation Corporation) to 422 million won (Korea Credit Guarantee Fund); a difference of a factor of seven.

In particular, heads of five corporations affiliated with the Ministry of Economy and Finance, one of the most powerful agencies, were paid an average of 272.73 million won, the highest level. Those paid relatively higher salaries were heads of organizations governed by the Ministry of Construction and Transportation (140.38 mil.), the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (126.14 mil.), the Ministry of Information and Communication (118.74 mil.), and the Ministry of Education (113.6 mil).

On the other hand, organizations annexed to the Patriots and Veterans Administration Agency (88.34 mil.) and the Ministry of Labor (79.33 mil.) paid lower wages for their chairs.

“It is stipulated that the annual salary of heads of government-affiliated organizations are to be decided based on consultation with the chairs of controlling agencies, which means their annual payment may well not reflect their performance records,” said Yoon. “We need to adopt a performance-based payment system to prevent further waste of tax,” she added.

She also mentioned, “The Ministry of Planning and Budget conducted management performance assessment on government-affiliated organizations since the GAOMA became effective last year in April, but the results were not taken into account when allotting 2005 budget for the payrolls of those organizations. The ministry just used the same standard with 2004.”

The head of the Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency was paid 84.78 million won in 2004. His agency ranked second out of 15 pension fund managing organizations. In contrast, the chairman of the Korea Technology Credit Guarantee Fund, which ranked 11th, earned 373 million won. The amount is second highest among 83 organizations.

The annual salary of chair of the Road Traffic Safety Agency was 67.71 million won, one of the lowest, even though the organization was assessed to be second best performing one among 12 culture and life related agencies. The ninth agency was the Korea Science Foundation, of which the chief director received a paycheck of 115 million won.

An official of the budget ministry said, “The performance assessment was not for salary arrangement but for an incentive system. It may not be possible under the current regulation to modify the payment for the head of every agency altogether.”

In-Jik Cho cij1999@donga.com