05/24/2010
Enhancing Transparency in Public Administration
The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Liberty and Center for Local Autonomy of Hanyang University have co-hosted their 40th seminar on local autonomy at Hanyang University on May 12, under the title of “Transparency and Efficiency in Public Administration”
Amid national accusations involving Prosecutors, which ironically deems to be the cleanest authority, the seminar provided a forum to discuss nefarious effects of corruption particularly in public administration and preventive systems, as well as to raise public awareness on the issue.
In his keynote speech, Prof. Dr. CHO Chang Hyun, Director of Institute for Government Innovation at Hanyang University called for more specific guidelines for administrative decisions, procedural transparency of public administration and needs for collecting data for performance-based evaluation, in order not only to reduce corruption but also enhance administrative efficiency in public administration.
During the seminar, Dr. Heinz Joerg Borkenstein, former director of the German Federal Ministry of Transportation and Construction and trainer of education on anti-corruption gave a brief but comprehensive introduction of German legal framework and administrative practices to enhance transparency of public administration, which eventually lead to preventing corruption as well. In Germany, three Federal Acts have been respectively legislated to greatly expand the freedom of access to information and also to drastically enhance transparency of public administration: “Act on Environmental Information”, “Act on Freedom of Access to Information, and “Act on Consumers’ Information. Of particular importance is the “Act on Freedom of Access to Information”, which allows unconditioned and unlimited access to the information possessed by the states, with only exception of matters of special public interest. This serves as an effective tool to prevent corruption, together with supervision of public administration by ordinary citizens.
His presentation was followed by Mr. HONG Hyeon Seon, Standing Commissioner at the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission and Prof. Dr. CHOI Jin Wook, Korea University. The overview of the historic development of Korean anti-corruption policies since 1960 was given by Mr. Hong. He noted that the corruption with grand scale has been significantly decreased due to these efforts, but there still remains increasing administrative corruption involving public officials as well as widespread corruption at the local political level resulted from the delay of political reform.
In addition to the seminar, FNF organized special lecture series on the topic by Dr. Borkenstein at universities in Seoul, Busan, and Jeju as well as at Korea Institute for Public Administration.
