KBS Director-General to Resign
Kim Geum-soo, 71-year-old director-general of Korea Broadcasting System, unexpectedly announced that he would resign just before the regular meeting of the board of directors, yesterday.
After returning from a business trip to Russia, Kim asked the secretary-general of the board of directors to come to his home and gave him a resignation letter explaining his intent to resign.
In the letter, Kim said, Even though I have discussed how to deal with KBS pending issues and come up with mid- and long-term development plans with Choi Si-jung, chairman of the Korea Broadcasting and Communications Commission, as well as other organizations, including the Society of KBS Producers, I could not successfully narrow the gaps of interests. I expected this to take time but I finally decided to step down because I realized Im not qualified to deal with the problems.
He added, Some media released misleading information about my meeting with Choi. Regardless, I assume the responsibility for not behaving myself properly.
In the wake of Kims announcement, the meeting of the board of directors ended without discussing pending issues.
At the meeting, directors were scheduled to choose a sentence expressing the stance of the board of directors regarding KBS Report of Management Evaluation for 2007, and discuss the Report on Execution of Budget in 1Q08 and Prospects for Profit.
The Board of Audit and Inspection will conduct a special audit into KBS for the first time since 2004.
The Committee to Examine Citizens Demand for Inspection of the BAI held a meeting and decided to conduct a special investigation into KBS, as requested by civic organizations, such as the National Action Campaign for Freedom and Democracy in Korea, and the New Right Union, which obtained signatures from 382 citizens.
The inspection board unanimously decided to conduct the audit after its seven commission members (consisting of three inside members and four outside members) held a 90 minute discussion.
However, the board decided not to include allegations raised by some conservative organizations that KBS released biased reports on some issues including the recent controversy over mad cow disease.
The inspection board will begin its preliminary audit including data collection beginning next week, at the earliest, and deal with KBS reckless management and abuse regarding personnel management from early June.
The board announced yesterday, We decided that KBS should be audited to find what is behind its poor management and accumulating loss, and how seriously the KBS management has abused its right over personnel management.
A source from the board said, Were worried. But, KBS should be audited since it has not been investigated at all since 2004. Also, it has been continuously blamed for bad management.
suhchoi@donga.com
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