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The total number of ministers and vice ministers in the Korean government has risen 31.7 percent since the beginning of the Roh Moo-hyun administration, from 101 to 133. The number of high-level government workers, levels one to three, has risen 27.2 percent over the same period, from 1,127 to 1,433. Citing the need to expand its functions, the Civil Service Commission raised the number of its high-level employees from four to 14, while the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs boosted its high-ranking employees from 64 to 78. The very branches of the government that were supposed to lead the way in cutting costs and raising efficiency ended up racing to expand the number of posts within their ranks.
Another characteristic of this administration is the rise in the number of high-level public servants within influential government agencies, such as the Office for Government Policy Coordination (from 26 to 45) and the Ministry of Planning and Budget (from 24 to 43). Even the Government Information Agency was treated as a key ministry, with the number of high-level employees rising from five to 10.
The original aim of the Senior Civil Service system, which was introduced in July of last year, was to station level one to three public servants regardless of their ranks and make them compete. The government used to publicize this system by saying it was making public servants tense. But what the government really ended up doing was growing the number of high-level public servants.
Just before the Roh administration was launched on Feb. 24, 2003, there were 904,504 public servants. At the end of last year, that number rose to 957,208. By the end of this year, it will reach 969,500. If you take into account the 29,997 employees of the Korea Railroad Corporation, which became a public corporation in 2005, the total number of government workers stands at 999,497. In contrast, only 2,342 new government workers were hired during the administration of former President Kim Dae-jung.
Yet the government passed on important decisions, responsibilities and troublesome tasks to committees that were formed for such work. As of the end of June, there were 416 different committees affiliated with the central government, including 28 committees reporting to the president and 52 reporting to the prime minister. The budget allocated to the presidential and prime ministerial committees was W100.7 billion (US$1=W915) in 2002, which rose to W432.9 billion in 2006.
Meanwhile, state-run companies did not sit idly by watching the government¡¯s ranks swell with new workers. As of the end of 2006, there were 238,700 workers employed by 288 public agencies. That¡¯s up 12.1 percent from 2002, equivalent to 25,686 new workers. There has been an endless series of rumors that workers at public agencies and state-run companies were receiving hefty bonuses regardless of performance and company-paid health check-ups and other expenses provided to workers even three years after they¡¯ve retired. This is what this administration has been doing with taxpayers¡¯ money over the last five years.
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