The ACRC issued recommendations on the revision of codes of conduct of public organizations

Provisions of Codes of Conduct of public organizations on the honorarium for public officials are supposed to be reinforced. For example, public officials will be required to immediately return the money they received in honorarium for external lectures related to their public duties when the amount received exceeds the designated amount, and they will also be banned from receiving fees for manu.

The ACRC developed "recommendations on institutional improvement regarding honorarium for public officials in return for external lectures" and accordingly made recommendations to public organizations including central administrative agencies and local governments.

As the number of registered external lectures of public officials and the amount of honorarium is rising every year, there is an increasingly negative public perception due to some public officials getting excessive amount of money in honorarium.

Therefore, the ACRC monitored the overall situation on the receipt of honorarium by public officials of central administrative organizations, local governments, and public service-related organizations. The monitoring revealed that some of the public officials received a large amount of money in manu fee as well as honorarium, gave lectures or attended meetings at other organizations too frequently, or were paid honorarium exceeding the criteria stipulated under the organization's code of conduct.

To address these issues, the ACRC recommended institutional improvements as follows:

First, the current regulations on the maximum amount of honorarium public officials can be offered would be revised to include manu fee so that public officials cannot receipt additional fees for manu aside from honorarium.

In particular, public officials are prohibited from giving external lectures or attending meetings (as a lecturer, speaker, panel or advisor) for more than three times or six hours in total per month. However, they should get the permission from the head of organization after the Code of Conduct Officer examines the case if it is needed in relation to introduction of new government policies, etc.


In addition, the ACRC recommended the enactment of a new provision to make it mandatory for public officials to return the honorarium they received when the amount of honorarium exceeds the criteria on the maximum amount of honorarium for external lectures.

The Code of Conduct Officer at each public organization will be required to conduct monitoring on external lectures given by the employees twice a year and report the monitoring result to the head of organization. And when violations of the code of conduct are detected, the organization should consider imposing disciplinary action against the violator before taking other measures in order to improve its code of conduct management system.

An ACRC official said, "Citizens' negative perception on the public sector due to the excessive honorarium received by public officials would be substantially improved if the recommendations are implemented, while enhancing the integrity level of the public sector. And the ACRC will increase the implementation rate of these recommendations by reflecting the implementation status of public organizations in the Anti-Corruption Initiatives Assessment."