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President Roh Moo-hyun replaced his culture and tourism minister and maritime affairs and fisheries minister on Thursday. He also replaced his government legislation and veterans affairs ministers. The senior presidential secretary for personnel affairs had said before the reshuffle that it would ¡°focus on ministers who had served long time and have completed a certain number of tasks.¡± But the ministers of culture and maritime affairs, who were replaced this time, had each served only about a year. Ministers who had stepped into office a little more than a year ago are being classified as having served ¡°long¡± time. The reason so many Cabinet members in the U.S. government serve their president throughout his entire term in office is because that¡¯s the best way to ensure the efficient and stable drafting and execution of policies.
Right after he took office, President Roh said he intended to guarantee ¡°at least two to two and a half years in office for ministers.¡± But over the last four years and two months, he used 75 different people to fill 20 ministerial posts, including the prime minister. He reshuffled each ministerial post an average of 3.7 times and at one year and two month intervals. This means that when a new minister is sworn in, his officials spend their time briefing the new head on the tasks at hand. And when the minister is just getting familiar with his job, a new one steps in. No wonder state affairs are not running precisely. Taxpayers¡¯ money is bleeding away left and right. Tens of trillions of won may have been wasted.
The new ministers appointed this time will serve at most seven or eight months after they¡¯ve gone through the National Assembly hearings. Their terms will end while they are still being briefed on their ministry¡¯s projects. This is why people are saying the president has reshuffled his Cabinet so many times in order to use the ministerial posting to embellish the careers of all the people who have helped him out until now.
The new patriots and veterans affairs minister is the in-law of the president¡¯s biggest financial supporter, Park Yeon-cha. Park was fined for providing W700 million (US$1=W927) in illegal political donations to one of the president¡¯s closest aides, Ahn Hee-jung. The senior presidential secretary for personnel affairs may balk at such rumors, but now, nobody takes him seriously.
At the same time, the labor and health and welfare ministers, who were former Uri Party lawmakers, were not reshuffled. When he was a presidential candidate back in July of 2002, Roh had demanded then President Kim Dae-jung to form a neutral Cabinet, even though it didn¡¯t contain a single ruling party lawmaker. It appears President Roh has completely forgotten what he said five years ago.
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