Democratic Party launches push to reform public institution practices ahead of relocation drive

As the government accelerates its second round of relocating public institutions to regional areas, the Democratic Party of Korea has launched discussions on reforming how those institutions operate and conduct business. The push aims to go beyond simply moving agencies to new locations, targeting unfair trading practices between public institutions and their contractors and tenant businesses.

The Democratic Party's Euljiro Committee held a forum Thursday at the National Assembly Members' Office Building on institutional reform to root out "gapjil" — the abuse of power by dominant parties in business relationships — at public institutions. The session reviewed a total of six reported cases of harm involving SR, Korea Expressway Corporation, Korea Water Resources Corporation and Korail.

Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Nam-geun, a member of the Euljiro Committee, said at the forum that unfair and opaque trading practices were widespread not only in the private sector but also in the public sector. "The forum was organized with the aim of having the public sector lead the way in resolving unfair trade practices and establishing fair commerce," he said.

Kim said the party would play a legislative role in reforming public contracts to establish a fair trading order alongside state-owned enterprises and supervisory agencies. He added that the party would continue holding a series of follow-up sessions on public institution evaluations, with the goal of imposing penalties on institutions where unfair practices occur regularly.

The forum examined a range of issues: the termination of business contracts tied to SR's railway integration, Korea Expressway Corporation's fuel procurement contracts and problems involving rest-stop tenant businesses, Korea Water Resources Corporation's hiring of private-sector workers and losses from overseas projects, and irregularities in Korail's procurement and bidding processes.

The protection of small and medium-sized enterprises and passengers caught up in the KTX-SRT integration also emerged as a key issue. Inable, the company that operated SRT Play — the ticketing platform for SRT trains — said it had developed and run the service at its own expense for about seven years starting in 2019, at SR's request, only to be forced to shut down the business while its contract was still in effect. SRT Play had about 1.6 million users.

The company said SR's own members would be transferred to Korail, while SRT Play users were excluded from any separate succession process. The personal data of roughly 600,000 users managed under SR's entrustment also had no designated successor. On Aug. 26, users' remaining balances on SRT prepaid vouchers were blocked without prior notice, the company said.