Gyeonggi Province Blocks 'Family Favoritism' at Affiliated Public Institutions…Recommends Improvement of Disciplinary Rules

[Suwon Ilbo=Reporter Park No-hoon] Gyeonggi Province is advancing improvements to personnel, audit, and disciplinary regulations at its affiliated public institutions to prevent self-imposed lenient penalties for various misconduct.

The province plans to deduct points from management evaluation scores when public institutions arbitrarily reduce disciplinary measures without grounds.

Gyeonggi Province announced on the 1st that it has recommended improvements to personnel, audit, and disciplinary regulations operated by individual institutions to enhance morality and integrity of public institution executives and employees as public officials.

This follows repeated cases where a significant number of public institutions have granted immunity or applied lenient disciplinary measures through personnel (disciplinary) committees in response to misconduct detected in various audits in recent years.

The province previously conducted a fact-finding survey from February on personnel and audit matters and disciplinary standards at 26 affiliated public institutions based on the Local Public Enterprise Law, the Act on the Operation of Local Government Investment and Contribution Institutions, the Labor Standards Act, and the Local Civil Servant Disciplinary Rules.

The survey identified 169 inappropriate items in institutional regulations: 48 in personnel, 35 in audit, and 86 in disciplinary standards.

By institution, Gyeonggi Traffic Corporation, which launched in 2020, had the most with 20 items, followed by Kintex with 11 items, Gyeonggi Technopark with 10 items, Gyeonggi Welfare Foundation with 9 items, and Gyeonggi Credit Guarantee Foundation and Gyeonggi Social Service Agency with 8 items each.

Specifically, Kintex and the Next-generation Convergence Technology Institute do not operate voluntary retirement provisions in their personnel regulations, allowing the province to determine that employees who committed misconduct could exploit voluntary retirement to evade disciplinary measures.

Additionally, 12 institutions including the Korean Ceramic Foundation lack provisions to prevent suspended or disciplined employees from receiving awards or commendations as mandated by regulations.

Eight institutions including Gyeonggi Social Service Agency have vaguely defined disciplinary mitigation standards or lack specific provisions on non-mitigable cases, raising concerns about inappropriate disciplinary reductions.

In fact, an employee of Gyeonggi Housing & Urban Development Corporation who was found to have sexually harassed a female subordinate and faced a demotion recommendation received only a suspension after personnel committee review.

Kintex, following the 2020 regular comprehensive audit where five employees were found to have misused housing purchase support funds, had their disciplinary measures reduced through the personnel committee: one employee with severe discipline was downgraded to minor discipline, and the remaining four received warning forgiveness based on a clause allowing for non-punishment.

Five institutions including Gyeonggi Port Authority operated without guidelines against harassment or with incomplete provisions covering items such as harassment examples, prevention training, victim protection, and recurrence prevention measures.

Eight institutions including Kintex either lack provisions requiring the reporting of work-related crimes to judicial authorities or operate such reporting as discretionary rather than mandatory, creating a high possibility that criminal suspicions are resolved solely through internal audit measures.

Notably, 23 institutions including Gyeonggi Housing & Urban Development Corporation have failed to establish processing standards for criminal cases referred by investigative agencies, allowing for arbitrary disciplinary measures.

In a recent example, Gyeonggi Economic Science and Innovation Promotion Agency imposed only a warning through internal measures on an employee despite receiving notice of "prosecution deferral" from judicial authorities in an assault case between colleagues, without referring the case to the personnel committee.

Additionally, 24 institutions including Gyeonggi Housing & Urban Development Corporation should apply specific disciplinary standards based on local civil servant disciplinary rules regarding duties such as diligence, obedience, courtesy, and dignity maintenance, and prohibitions such as abandonment of duty, profit-seeking, and concurrent positions, but some omit disciplinary standards or fail to differentiate details, raising concerns about vague application.

Accordingly, the province has prepared regulatory amendment recommendations based on local public enterprise personnel management standards, local investment and contribution institution personnel and organizational guidelines, and local civil servant disciplinary rules, recommending that 26 affiliated public institutions improve personnel, audit, and disciplinary standards.

The province plans to reflect adherence to recommendations in integrity evaluations of public institutions under quasi-government entities to actively encourage regulatory improvements.

Notably, when the province confirms that public institutions' internal personnel (disciplinary) committees have indiscriminately reduced disciplinary measures for employees with misconduct, it will deduct up to 0.2 points in the audit findings improvement performance category during public institution management evaluation.

Kim Jong-gu, Head of the Province's Audit Division, stated: "Public institution employees as civil officials are required to maintain higher levels of morality and integrity than ordinary citizens, yet lenient measures have been frequent due to various regulatory shortcomings in internal regulation collections and family favoritism by internal personnel committees. We expect that these regulatory amendment recommendations will clarify personnel, audit, and disciplinary standards, leading to stricter disciplinary measures against those with misconduct."