Ministry holds 'proactive administration' briefing for employees; Board of Audit and Inspection vows to back civil servants without fear of audit
South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which has repeatedly faced Board of Audit and Inspection scrutiny over issues such as the early shutdown of the Wolsong Unit 1 nuclear power plant, has urged its staff to carry out their duties with conviction under a push for more proactive administration.
According to the ministry, it held a "traveling proactive administration support briefing" for about 200 employees at the Government Sejong Complex on Wednesday.
The session was designed to help civil servants perform their duties without fear of audits. Moon Sin-hak, the ministry's current vice minister, was a director-general-level official during the Yoon Suk Yeol administration when he faced both a Board of Audit and Inspection audit and a prosecutors' investigation over charges of manipulating the economic feasibility assessment of Wolsong Unit 1. After the Supreme Court issued a final not-guilty ruling, he was appointed vice minister under the Lee Jae Myung administration, making a prominent return last June.
Jeong Sang-woo, secretary general of the Board of Audit and Inspection, said the agency would "actively work to create an environment where civil servants can do their jobs with conviction, free from worry about audits."
Park Jeong-cheol, the Board of Audit and Inspection's director for proactive administration oversight, outlined the agency's plans to reform its audit operations — including establishing a new innovation-support audit category, abolishing audits of policy decisions, and expanding eligibility for pre-consultation requests while broadening immunity protections for proactive administration — and called on civil servants to embrace a more proactive approach to their work.
In line with that push, the ministry convened its proactive administration committee this year and approved measures including a recommendation to change the arbitration venue for settlement disputes among nuclear power public enterprises in February and a plan to streamline the nuclear power export framework in May.
By Bae Moon-suk
oskymoon@heraldcorp.com
