Hiring Irregularities

[Anchor Lead]

The Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea has inspected some 50 of the nation’s public agencies and uncovered 100 cases of irregularities in personnel hiring. The board said that abuse of power was severe among the chiefs of public agencies.

[Pkg]

The Korea Coal Corporation hired ten young interns back in 2014. At the time, corporation chief Kwon Hyuk-soo instructed an executive to hire his nephew as an intern. The executive followed Kwon's instructions even after receiving a report from a working-level official saying that the nephew's grades were too poor to qualify for internship. The working-level official followed the executive's order and gave Kwon's nephew a perfect score for his letter of introduction. The result of Kwon's nephew's job interview was also fabricated and he eventually landed the internship. The following year, Kwon instructed corporation officials to grant his nephew permanent employment status, and then-manager Baek Chang-hyun, who currently serves as the corporation chief, executed Kwon's order. When hiring permanent employees in 2016, Baek presented opportunities for job interviews to 22 children of corporation officials, even though all 36 applicants failed the written test at the time. Six of them eventually landed jobs at the corporation. The chief of the Korea National Oil Corporation, Kim Jung-rae, last year handed over the resumes of his acquaintances to one of the agency's executives, asking him to hire them as contract officials of the highest level. The Board of Audit and Inspection has inspected 53 public agencies and uncovered 100 cases of irregularities in their hiring processes, including inappropriate instructions by agency chiefs, manipulation of scores and hiring more personnel than initially planned.

[Soundbite] Kim Tae-woo(Board of Audit & Inspection) : "Unlike government agencies, which hire officials according to the State Public Officials Act, public agencies follow their own guidelines when recruiting people and are not supervised strictly."

The Board of Audit and Inspection has requested investigations into eight people including the head of the Korea Coal Corporation on charges of obstruction of business and demanded that 16 others be reprimanded.