Participant Autonomy 21: "Gwangju Nam-gu Personnel Committee Must Resign for Excusing Inappropriate Appointments"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Yoon Jamin] A civic group demanded the full resignation of the personnel committee and an apology from Kim Byeongnae, mayor of Nam-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, regarding the controversy over the reappointment of two open-term public officials in Nam-gu.

On the 25th, Participation and Autonomy 21 stated in a press release, “Nam-gu, Gwangju held a personnel committee meeting on the 19th to hire a policy advisor and a public relations planning advisor, who are professional term public officials,” and added, “However, the process was rushed and hastily conducted.”

They further explained, “The reason why Nam-gu was able to carry out such an inappropriate personnel administration in just three days was because the Nam-gu personnel committee voluntarily took on the role of a rubber stamp, approving everything without delay.”

They also pointed out, “According to the ordinance on ‘Composition and Operation of Various Committees in Nam-gu,’ the committee must notify members of the meeting schedule and agenda at least seven days before the meeting and distribute meeting materials at least three days prior. However, Nam-gu reportedly only began organizing the personnel committee by asking members about their availability two days before the meeting.”

Although there is an exception clause for urgent matters, a representative from Participation and Autonomy 21 explained that it is difficult to rationally accept whether the personnel committee had to be convened so hastily.

In this regard, Kim Byeongnae, mayor of Nam-gu, reportedly explained, “Securing resources for Nam-gu is of utmost importance, and we are promoting a hydrogen fuel cell power plant project as a business to establish a financial stabilization fund,” and “The policy advisor hired under this professional term system was the person responsible for securing national and city funds from the central government, the National Assembly, and Gwangju City, including for the hydrogen fuel cell power plant.”

Mayor Kim also reportedly explained, “From the perspective of Nam-gu Office, where the project promotion was urgent, there was no time to find a suitable candidate to quickly overcome the vacancy in the responsible position. Since the person understood the related work better than anyone else and had prepared solutions and execution plans, we judged them to be the right candidate and appointed them after several proposals.”

Regarding this, Participation and Autonomy 21 stated, “Regardless of the appropriateness of Mayor Kim’s explanation, the Nam-gu personnel committee failed to properly perform its fundamental role of checking and monitoring the mayor’s close associates,” and criticized, “Rather, it cannot be overlooked that they condoned inappropriate personnel administration and voluntarily took on the role of a rubber stamp.”

They added, “Although criticism and controversy over the inappropriateness of the reappointment continued inside and outside the district office, the personnel committee approved the hiring without raising any issues during the review process, ignoring the critical public opinion,” emphasizing, “Even if there were no disqualifications, this was a review that did not meet the expectations of the citizens, and responsibility cannot be avoided.”

They continued, “The fact that this reappointment case was an inappropriate personnel administration and that the fairness of professional term hiring could be compromised is largely due to the Nam-gu personnel committee’s voluntary role as a rubber stamp,” and urged, “Nam-gu should apologize to the citizens, and all members of the Nam-gu personnel committee should resign.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.