hankyoreh

Parachute appointees made under the Park Geun-hye administration

By Ryu Yi-geun and Lee Wan, staff reporters

South Korean President Park Geun-hye promised not to make so-called “parachute appointments,” but according to a recent study released on Nov. 14, her administration has made these appointments more often than her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak.

Parachute appointments refer to appointing someone from outside an agency to be the head of that agency because of their political influence rather than their professional credentials. Such appointments usually do not involve a normal vetting process.

The Public Policy Institute for People (PPIP) and the Hankyoreh analyzed the executives at 295 public agencies. According to the analysis, 77 agency heads had been appointed since the end of February, when Park was inaugurated as president, and 35 of these, or 45.5%, or nearly half, were parachute appointments.

This contradicts a statement that Park made when after she was elected. “Parachute appointments hurt the morale of hard-working people, and these need to be eliminated in the new administration,” she said.

Between March and October 2008, the first phase of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s time in power, 78 of 180 newly appointed government agency heads were parachute appointments, or 43.3% of the total. Compared to this, there has been a small but definite increase under the Park administration.

For the comparison, the PPIP and the Hankyoreh used data on parachute appointments in government agencies disclosed by People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD). They adjusted and reorganized the data according to current standards.

Since the start of the new administration, the most common type of parachute appointment has been to people who helped with Park’s election campaign. There were 15 such appointments, including Korail CEO Choi Yeon-hye.

Five parachute appointments, including Kim Seok-ki, CEO of the Korea Airports Corporation, are from Yeungnam University, where Park was once chair of the board.

No less than four of the parachute appointees are people who worked at the Institute for Future Studies, which served as Park’s think tank during the presidential campaign. One of the four is Son Yang-hoon, current head of the Korea Energy Economics Institute.

In addition, a total of four people who took part in the National Economic Advisory Council received parachute appointments, unlike under the previous administration. One example is Kim Kyung-hwan, president of the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements.

Under the current administration, Yeungnam University, the Institute for Future Studies, and the National Economic Advisory Council are drawing attention as new destinations for parachute appointees.

In the case of standing auditors, who are supposed to check corporate management, all three of the ones appointed this year were parachuted in. One of the three is Kim Cheol-hyeon, president of Korea Culture Promotion Inc. He had served as a senior administrator at the Blue House.

In this analysis, quite a few appointees were not regarded as parachute appointments even though they were former bureaucrats from the supervising ministry. Former bureaucrats accounted for 32, or 41.6%, of the 77 agency heads who have been appointed under the new administration.

“Instead of openly appointing politicians as has been done in the past, this administration is appointing bureaucrats and professors who have a veneer of professional expertise,” said Kim Cheol, a researcher with the PPIP.

“There are concerns that this could decrease the government agency’s autonomy from the ministry that it answers to and make the agency further subordinate to the ministry, serving it at beck and call.”

For purposes of accuracy, this analysis divided public agency executives into the categories of politicians, bureaucrats, private-sector experts, internal appointments, and other, focusing on the place where the executive worked longest.

Bureaucrats, private-sector experts, and internal appointments were only regarded as parachute appointments when they had taken part in the presidential transition committee or been politically active by working with the Institute of Future Studies, which was Park’s think tank during her election campaign. This limitation did not apply to politicians.

Parachute or patronage appointments - meaning appointments of people that Park knows personally or has academic ties with through Yeungnam University - were also categorized as parachute appointments.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]