OECD commented Korea’s three-year consecutive increase on CPI ranking

- ACRC’s corruption fighting efforts in the public sector is highly acknowledged -

August 11, 2020

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said that the Korean government has taken significant steps to fight corruption

OECD Economic and Development Review Committee (EDRC), in its Economic Review of Korea 2020, published in August, highly recognized the Korean government’s efforts to fight corruption. The report says that corruption of low-level public officials has been almost eradicated, in particular thanks to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Huei)

The report also says Korea’s rankings on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index and the World Bank Control of Corruption Indicator have been improved over the past three years, with improvement on other indicators as well.

Significant progresses that the report states the Korean government has made includes: ▴reinforced protection of whistleblowers in Act on the Prevention of Corruption and the Establishment and Management of the ACRC; ▴ provisions of conflict of interest prevention added to the Code of Conduct of Public Officials; and▴ enforcement of the Public Finance Recovery Act.

It also added that recently a number presidential pardons were denied to politicians, business executives or public officials involved in corruption. In addition, it mentioned that as a meaningful step to fight corruption, the National Assembly passed a bill to set up a special anti-corruption investigation unit tasked with looking into wrongdoing by high-ranking government officials, which includes senior prosecutors, judges and police officers.

Every two years, the OECD publishes a country review report for each member state to monitor economic condition and policies and suggest policy directions.

It is the first time that corruption issues were covered in a meaningful proportion in Economic Review of Korea, which seems to measure the effect of anti-corruption efforts on economic development.

According to a research conducted by an industrial-academic cooperation team of the Seoul National University in 2017, a rise in Corruption Perception Index closely links to economic development. In fact, as of 2016, 10 point increase in CPI for five years led to 67 trillion won increase in GDP during the same period of time.

ACRC Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui said, “The fact that OECD commented that Korea’s fight against corruption in Korea has made significant progress could mean that the global community has recognized the government’s policies for a transparent society. “She added,”The ACRC, as anti-corruption agency of Korea, will continue to work hard to make bigger progress in ending corruption.“