[2020 National Audit] "K-Water and Korea Environment Corporation Focus on Construction Accidents During Self-Inspection On-Site"

Im Jong-seong "Urgent Measures Needed to Reduce Safety Accidents"

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Construction accidents occurring at the Korea Water Resources Corporation and the Korea Environment Corporation, both under the Ministry of Environment, were found to be concentrated at sites supervised internally by each institution.

According to data submitted by the Water Resources Corporation and the Environment Corporation to Lim Jongseong, a member of the National Assembly's Environment and Labor Committee from the Democratic Party of Korea, the number of construction accident casualties at the two institutions last year recorded the highest figure in the past five years.

In the case of the Water Resources Corporation, the number of construction accident casualties increased by 134.1%, from 41 in 2015 to 96 last year, while the Environment Corporation saw a 60.7% increase from 28 to 45 during the same period.

When converted to accident rates, the Water Resources Corporation recorded 1.72%, and the Environment Corporation 1.68%, both higher than the average accident rate of 0.59% for public institutions.

The fatality rate per 10,000 people (the ratio of fatal accidents per 10,000 people) also far exceeded the public institution average. While the average fatality rate for public institutions is 1.22%, the Water Resources Corporation's fatality rate was 3.59%, and the Environment Corporation's reached 11.2%.

The more serious issue is that most of these construction accident casualties occurred at sites where each institution conducted self-supervision.

For the Water Resources Corporation, among 109 construction sites where accidents occurred in the past five years, 76 sites, accounting for 70%, were self-supervised, and for the Environment Corporation, all 113 sites where accidents occurred in the past five years were self-supervised.

Assemblyman Lim stated, "Supervision, which should play the most important role in preventing and managing construction accidents, is not fulfilling its role," adding, "We need to inspect whether there are problems with each institution's self-supervision methods and fundamentally prepare measures to reduce safety accidents."

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