Ahn Cheol-soo: "Administrative Overreach Must Be Reduced and Reorganized Efficiently"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Chun-han] Ahn Cheol-soo, leader of the People’s Party, stated on the 19th, “To resolve the problems in the public sector, an external driving system to reform government functions is necessary,” and added, “To reduce the excessive functions of the executive branch and create a national system full of autonomy and responsibility, the National Assembly must properly fulfill its role through legislation and other means.”

At the policy seminar 'On(on) National Study Room' held at the National Assembly that day, Ahn said, “I hope this will be a time to find answers to questions about the efficient and effective reorganization of national functions and to find clues for the National Assembly to deliberate and legislate.”

Ahn pointed out, “In 2017, when the Moon Jae-in administration began, the number of employees at public institutions was 346,000. However, in the first quarter of this year, just three years later, it increased by more than 70,000 to 418,000,” and added, “The scale of public institution debt increased by about 30 trillion won from 495.2 trillion won in 2017 to 525.1 trillion won last year.”

Ahn emphasized, “The People’s Party promised in the last general election to consolidate the government’s inefficient overlapping and duplicate functions. We also pledged a comprehensive innovation of the public sector, including building a blockchain-type government and utilizing artificial intelligence,” and continued, “In addition, we have presented a vision for a major transition to a future government, including revising the total number order for national and local government officials, revising the total wage system, and expanding the open recruitment system to improve government efficiency.”

Ahn said, “In the process of forcibly creating tasks for government-affiliated agencies, we often see cases where ideas or business items of small and medium venture companies are plagiarized to show performance,” and added, “In the case of Zero Pay, despite the market already having various forms of payment systems, the government created a new service and directly entered the market. As I predicted, Zero Pay has become almost ineffective and is only wasting the national treasury.”

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