[Editorial] Roh Administration Miscounts Public Servants

The Roh Moo-hyun administration privatized the Korea Railroad Corporation in 2005, which turned the Corporation’s 29,756 civil servants into ordinary employees. The government placed a cap on the number of public service personnel at 273,982 by presidential decree in 1998.

Common sense has it that the total number would have declined to 244,226 after excluding KORAIL employees. However, that was not the case. In a document recently presented to the National Assembly, the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs reported that the number of civil servants fell to 249,027 in 2005 from 271,566 in 2004, and also said that the number decreased to 255,643 in 2006.

It sounds odd, but the Ministry reported that “the number declined” based on the limit which was set before the privatization of KORAIL. This amounts to deception.

Then the ministry announced in April, “The government plans to increase the number by 12,317 this year and some 50,000 will be added by 2011.” The number of government officials rose by 48,499 in the four years since the inauguration of the Roh administration; if this year’s increase is added to the tally, the total increase will be some 60,000. Generally, keeping one public servant is estimated to take about 60 million won of taxpayers’ money, including an average annual salary of 30 million won and another 30 million won for extra expenses. So 60,000 more public servants translates into an additional tax burden of 360,000 won per household. In addition, it also means increases in projects and regulations, which need taxpayers’ money.

President Roh has taken the lead in the ballooning of the government, saying, “What matters is work not the number.” However, the Board of Audit and Inspection pointed out that for three years starting in 2003, budget wastage reached 39 trillion won. How can the government justify such a waste of the public’s money?

It is not easy to cut the number of public servants. To rein in officialdom’s tendency to expand itself, the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs has the function of “monitoring and controlling increases in staff,” as did the former Ministry for Public Services. But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is set to establish 10 overseas embassy compounds and increase the number of staff by 190. And the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs is making a pointless case for the increase, which has been carried out in an expedient manner, saying, “The limit on the number of public servants was set when the nation was under restructuring due to the Asian-wide financial crisis.” But the bureaucracy remained unscathed while many of the general public went through an excruciating restructuring.