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ACRC issues guidelines for 2011 Anti-Corruption Policy
- Date2011-02-11
- Hit1,164
The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) presented guidelines on the anti-corruption and integrity policies for this year in a meeting that was held on January 13. The meeting brought together inspectors of 958 public organizations, including central and local governments, education offices and public companies.
"Korea cannot become an advanced nation without rooting out the virus of corruption such as undue solicitations and mediations," ACRC Chairperson Kim Young-ran said in her opening speech.
Stressing the importance of high-ranking officials' leadership in the prevention of corruption, the Chairperson showed her strong willingness to focus on spreading a culture of integrity among high-ranking officials and eradicating malpractices in the public sector. She called on all the public organizations to closely cooperate with the ACRC in its anti-corruption initiatives.
According to the guidelines, enhancing integrity of high-ranking officials will be the ACRC's top priority this year. The Commission plans to complete the development of a standard model for integrity assessment on high-ranking officials by February this year. Then, the assessment model will be provided to public organizations so that they can voluntarily conduct the assessment. Also, high officials will be required to take integrity training within a year after being promoted to a certain position. The ACRC will also actively support local governments to help them implement the "code of conduct for local councilmen" that will put into force from March.
Additionally, the ACRC will pursue all-round measures to eradicate undue solicitations and use of good offices. The level of solicitation will be added to the criteria for the Integrity Assessment, while the efforts to prevent solicitations will be evaluated when it conducts the Anti-Corruption Initiatives Assessment. Also, the Corruption Impact Assessment on current or new/revised laws and regulations will focus on cutting off all the possibilities of undue solicitations during decision-making processes.
The anti-corruption body has prepared those measures since its "corruption perception survey" conducted last October indicated that solicitation is the most common form of corruption in the public sector. The respondents answered that the most common form of corruption was "improper solicitation and mediation" (34.6%), followed by "bribery" (17.6%) and "embezzlement and misappropriation" (15.1%).
Furthermore, the ACRC plans to monitor unfair employment of family, relatives, or campaign strategists of a public official in affiliated organizations, and the act of giving undue benefits such as a private contact to a public official's relatives or retired officials since such irregular practices have been found to slacken discipline among public officials. The Commission will also keep close tabs on intervention in granting concessions, diversion of government budget for other purposes, and private use of public properties.
To implement those primary tasks, the ACRC plans to conduct "Clean Hands Korea" campaign jointly with local governments and public companies. It will also expand the work areas and organizations subject to the Integrity Assessment. It will measure the levels of "international transaction integrity" by surveying foreigners and foreign businesses regarding contracts with public organizations in May and June, while conducting a pilot assessment of the integrity of diplomatic offices in the second quarter of this year. Besides, the ACRC will seek to make it mandatory for each public organization to build and manage a database of the public officials who committed corruption.
Based on those guidelines, public organizations are required to set up their own anti-corruption action plan and submit to the ACRC by the end of February.
The inspectors of 958 public organizations, who participated in the meeting, adopted a resolution on that day to take the lead in eradicating undue solicitations and mediations.
"Korea cannot become an advanced nation without rooting out the virus of corruption such as undue solicitations and mediations," ACRC Chairperson Kim Young-ran said in her opening speech.
Stressing the importance of high-ranking officials' leadership in the prevention of corruption, the Chairperson showed her strong willingness to focus on spreading a culture of integrity among high-ranking officials and eradicating malpractices in the public sector. She called on all the public organizations to closely cooperate with the ACRC in its anti-corruption initiatives.
According to the guidelines, enhancing integrity of high-ranking officials will be the ACRC's top priority this year. The Commission plans to complete the development of a standard model for integrity assessment on high-ranking officials by February this year. Then, the assessment model will be provided to public organizations so that they can voluntarily conduct the assessment. Also, high officials will be required to take integrity training within a year after being promoted to a certain position. The ACRC will also actively support local governments to help them implement the "code of conduct for local councilmen" that will put into force from March.
Additionally, the ACRC will pursue all-round measures to eradicate undue solicitations and use of good offices. The level of solicitation will be added to the criteria for the Integrity Assessment, while the efforts to prevent solicitations will be evaluated when it conducts the Anti-Corruption Initiatives Assessment. Also, the Corruption Impact Assessment on current or new/revised laws and regulations will focus on cutting off all the possibilities of undue solicitations during decision-making processes.
The anti-corruption body has prepared those measures since its "corruption perception survey" conducted last October indicated that solicitation is the most common form of corruption in the public sector. The respondents answered that the most common form of corruption was "improper solicitation and mediation" (34.6%), followed by "bribery" (17.6%) and "embezzlement and misappropriation" (15.1%).
Furthermore, the ACRC plans to monitor unfair employment of family, relatives, or campaign strategists of a public official in affiliated organizations, and the act of giving undue benefits such as a private contact to a public official's relatives or retired officials since such irregular practices have been found to slacken discipline among public officials. The Commission will also keep close tabs on intervention in granting concessions, diversion of government budget for other purposes, and private use of public properties.
To implement those primary tasks, the ACRC plans to conduct "Clean Hands Korea" campaign jointly with local governments and public companies. It will also expand the work areas and organizations subject to the Integrity Assessment. It will measure the levels of "international transaction integrity" by surveying foreigners and foreign businesses regarding contracts with public organizations in May and June, while conducting a pilot assessment of the integrity of diplomatic offices in the second quarter of this year. Besides, the ACRC will seek to make it mandatory for each public organization to build and manage a database of the public officials who committed corruption.
Based on those guidelines, public organizations are required to set up their own anti-corruption action plan and submit to the ACRC by the end of February.
The inspectors of 958 public organizations, who participated in the meeting, adopted a resolution on that day to take the lead in eradicating undue solicitations and mediations.
