[Editorial] Check the Board of Audit and Inspection`s Political Motives

Since the new administration took office, the Board of Audit and Inspection (BAI) has been releasing big inspection results one after another. The outcomes are uniformly pleasing to the Lee Myung-bak administration since all of them are mainly about revealing faults with the previous administration. A case in point is the inspection of excessive numbers of government committees and exaggerated effects over the building of “innovation city.” When a controversy over the reshuffling of public organizations brewed, the BAI announced the interim result of an inspection of 31 mismanaged public organizations. It also publicized the government’s poor management of inter-Korean cooperation funds that financed the previous governments’ “Sunshine Policy.”

These circumstances can be interpreted as either that the BAI suddenly got some superpower to discover all the mismanagement of the previous administration or that it did not have any interest to conduct an inspection or release a report during the previous administration’s term. The BAI argues that long-planned inspections have produced outcomes only recently. But it is difficult to miss the real intention to justify the new administration’s shift in state affairs. It has been so long since the press began raising issues with the explosion of government committees, problems with innovation city and inter-Korean cooperation funds. If the BAI performed its inspection of such problems back then, it would not have been criticized for its belated or politically motivated inspection.

The audit and inspection agency exists to watch if there is any wasted budget or if administrative agencies and public officers do their job properly through accounting audits and job inspections. Although it directly reports to the president, it enjoys independence stipulated in laws when doing its job. Moreover, the head of the BAI has a constitutionally mandated term of four years. All that is to help the agency act based on its own conviction, rather than be swayed by the president. However, in the public’s eyes, the BAI is like a “group of soulless public officers” who are busy pleasing those in power.

Some say that such problems are caused by the fact that the BAI is not a totally independent or parliament-affiliated agency, like its international counterparts. That argument makes some sense, but it is not the root cause of the problem. The biggest responsibility for the BAI’s failure to do its part, despite its independence protected by the constitution and laws, lies with its head, Jeon Yoon-chul.

In June of next year, Jeon turns 70, the legal retirement age for BAI officers. Some say that he is performing audits that can please the new administration just to keep his position for the remainder of his term. He already occupied various key positions in previous administrations. It would be a shame if he undermined the public trust in the BAI due to an obsession to keep his post.