"Did the civil servant ask for anything during your inquiry?" "Was there any coercive atmosphere?" "Did they handle your case proactively?"
Of late, city halls, county offices and education offices across Gangwon Province have been rolling out measures to ensure integrity in practice. Donghae city announced Friday it is operating a "corruption-vulnerable area integrity monitoring system" that directly gauges how clean citizens find public administration in the field and encourages them to report their experiences.
The system sends citizens text-message surveys with questions designed to detect potential irregularities, creating a real-time, citizen-driven reporting and whistleblowing mechanism for integrity assurance.
The initiative goes beyond internal training and inspections, aiming to consistently gather feedback from people who have directly dealt with administrative processes — including permits and licenses, contracts, and construction and service projects — so that corruption risks can be identified and addressed before problems arise.
Donghae links the surveys to text messages sent after civil complaints are processed. The questionnaire is kept short to minimize the burden on respondents and covers five areas: the proactiveness of case handling, the fairness of procedures and standards, the quality of service, whether any abuse of authority or coercive conduct occurred, and whether demands were made for money, hospitality or other benefits.
Since the monitoring program launched on Aug. 3, the city has sent survey invitations to 864 people as of Friday, with 44 having responded and shared their views on administrative services.
Donghae plans to continue encouraging participation to build up a larger pool of response data and improve the reliability of its analysis.
Through the monitoring program, the city intends to identify even minor inconveniences and unfair elements that citizens encounter during administrative processes, and to strengthen what it calls "prevention-centered integrity administration" by cutting off potential corruption before it occurs.
"Integrity is not just about systems and education — it is important that citizens feel it directly when using administrative services," said Jeong Ha-yeon, the city's public relations and audit officer. "We will consistently listen to voices from the scene, identify vulnerabilities through data, and work to build fair and transparent administration that citizens can trust."
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