Public Efficiency
SEOUL, Feb. 20 (Yonhap) – President Park Geun-hye said Thursday that her drive to reform public organizations will focus not only on reducing their debts and ending lax management but also overhauling their duties to help them focus on core responsibilities.
“Besides debt reduction and (ending) lax management, we have to focus on increasing productivity,” Park said during a joint policy briefing by the finance ministry, the fair trade commission and the financial services commission. “We have to carry out an all-out review of the functions of public institutions in phases and get them to focus on core duties.”
Park also said that public corporations should sell off their assets for debt repayment, if necessary, and asked officials to make sure that those assets are sold for the right prices as they are public properties purchased with taxpayer money.
She called for increasing the values of such assets before sell-offs.
Park also warned against any attempts to derail the reform drive.
“If there are attempts to resist reform in order to protect vested rights, we have to respond to them with principles,” Park said. “We are in a situation where all people are tightening their belts. If they try to ensure their individual interests and vested rights, people won’t accept that.”
Speaking about the massive data leak earlier this year, Park said the government should come up with measures to bar financial institutions from collecting non-essential information from customers and punish them severely enough to make them shut down if they violate the rules.