[Opinion] Committees

The day before yesterday, the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs (MOGAHA) finally announced it would refurbish its controversial committees. It plans to reorganize 90 out of the current 416 committees under the government by means of mergers and abolitions, position adjustments, and the expansion of civil committees. It is hoping to be done by 2009.

If the government sets out to do clean-up tasks in the final days of the administration, regardless of the fact that it`s been a long time since the circulation of the expression: "a republic of committees" as a result of a 5-year long expansion in the number of committees, who is going to take charge of the maintenance bills for the budget money wasted so far?

When President Roh Moo-hyun came into office there were 364 committees, but now there are 416. Not satisfied by the increase in the number of government employees by 100,000, adding 56 per day, he raised the number of committees as well. At the National Competitiveness Conference in 2004, President Roh said their performance would justify everything and added, “Please refer to the Participatory Government as a republic of committees.” But an examination by the MOGAHA last year revealed that 45 committees had not held even one meeting for a year, and that 15 of them had only one meeting in the past four years. The administrative efficacy of the South Korean government researched by IMD (International Institute for Management Development, Switzerland) fell to 31st this year from 26th in 2002.

The merit of committees is that they can overcome arbitrary decisions of government employees and pay attention to the advice and wisdom of various people. But under the current administration, most committees have weak legal bases and are free of supervision or control. Quite a number of them are backed by political intentions like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, or seem to exist to give offices to those people in Roh’s power circle. Their required budget is large: the bill for 28 presidential committees alone increased from 54 billion won to 235.2 billion won over the past four years.

“Small government” is the trend of the world these days. Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has been promoting small government since his inauguration, ranging from the pension and medical service sector to subsidies for the poor. Kevin Rudd, the new Australian Prime Minister, is tightening government purse strings more than the previous administration, even though he comes from the left-wing. He decided to cut the number of staffers in the prime minister`s office and ministerial offices by 140 from the current 480. Reforming committees and making small government is a major national task that should immediately carried out by the next administration as well.

Editorial Writer Gwon Sun-taek, maypole@donga.com