Ministries in Sejong complex spent 4 bln. won on business trips in 4 months

More than 1,000 civil servants working at the Government Complex Sejong were late for work en masse Tuesday and Wednesday last week. The incident happened due to severe traffic jam that was caused by traffic accidents on Gyeongbu Expressway for the two consecutive days. About 15 percent of over 6,400 civil servants working with the seven government ministries housed in the complex were “collectively late for work,” which is hardly compatible with common sense, for the two consecutive days.

As a result, ministries at the complex, including the Strategy and Finance Ministry, had to delay by half an hour to an hour their senior staff meetings presided over by ministers on last Monday. “It was nonetheless fortunate that the officials were not embroiled in the accident,” said a ranking official at the Strategy and Finance Ministry. “If one of the commuter buses got involved in an accident, it will cause huge administrative vacuum."

Six months has passed since the phase 1 relocation of government agencies to the Government Complex Sejong was completed with the moving of the minister’s and vice minister’s offices at the Strategy and Finance Ministry to the new government complex on December 19 last year. Administrative inefficiency is increasingly serious, with a surge of administrative costs such as business trip expenses, and delays of the government’s policy-making process, but the government has yet to come up with any measures that would improve the situation. Administration experts say that after all, it will be none other than the general public who will end up suffer damage caused by inefficiency in public administration.

○ 7 ministries spent nearly 4 billion won on business trips for four months

According to the seven ministries at the Sejong complex on Sunday, the combined total of business trip expenses that they spent from January to April this year came to nearly 4 billion won (3.55 million U.S. dollars), up more than 50 percent from last year. The domestic business trip expenses spent by the Strategy Finance Ministry (1.25 billion won or 1.11 million dollars) and the Land and Transportation Ministry (1.21 billion won or 1.07 million dollars) already exceeded 1 billion won (890,000 dollars) each. The combined total of domestic business trip expenses by the seven ministries will likely far exceed 10 billion won (8.9 million dollars) this year. “Even when we were housed at the Government Complex Gwacheon (in Gyeonggi Province), we ran short of the business trip budget around October and thus had difficulties converting funds from other budgetary accounts,” said a source at the Strategy and Finance Ministry. “Our business trip budget will likely be depleted way earlier this year than before.”