YOON APPOINTS MORE MINISTERS

[Anchor Lead]

President Yoon Suk-yeol appointed more new ministers yesterday and presided over his first cabinet meeting, where the new cabinet approved of a supplementary budget for COVID-19 relief amounting to 59.4 trillion won.

[Pkg]

On his way to work, President Yoo Suk-yeol said he would appoint more ministers on Friday.

[Soundbite] Yoon Suk-yeol(President) : "(Do you plan to name ministers whose hearing reports haven’t been adopted yet today?) Well, only a few for today."

An hour later, he appointed Park Jin as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Lee Sang-min as the Minister of the Interior and Safety. A key official of the top Office said the President named new ministers without their confirmation hearing reports because it was paramount to keep the government running. President Yoon is still thinking hard about appointing three other nominees whose reports haven’t been adopted yet. The official reported that the prevailing opinion of the President’s Office is not to hurry and there is no need for a hard-lined confrontation with the opposition. It appears the current administration does not intend to provoke the Democratic Party, which hasn’t decided on whether to approve Prime Minister nominee Han Duck-soo. The first cabinet meeting was held with nine newly appointed ministers and two ministers from the previous administration. Initially, a cabinet meeting was known to require more than 15 ministers but the Ministry of Government Legislation’s authoritative interpretation rendered it possible to hold a cabinet meeting with a minimum of 11 members. The first agenda was a 59.4-trillion won supplementary budget for COVID-19 loss compensation. President Yoon emphasized it is the state’s duty to compensate the people for financial losses that rose from disease control measures.

[Soundbite] Yoon Suk-yeol(President) : "It’s hardly a genuinely constitutional country if the government restricts people’s property rights and doesn’t properly compensate for their losses."

The additional budget plan was approved at the cabinet meeting and presented to the National Assembly on Friday. President Yoon will give a speech about the supplementary budget at the National Assembly on May 16th. Following the cabinet meeting, two more ministers were added after the President received their confirmation hearing reports. They are Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Lee Chang-yang and Minister of SMEs and Startups Lee Young. So far, eleven ministers have been appointed for President Yoon’s first cabinet.