Gyeongju City, which held a New Year's 'Sejoksik' ceremony, jumps two levels from last place in the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission's integrity evaluation

Integrity Overall Grade 3... External Integrity Level Higher Than National Average

On January 2nd this year, Mayor Ju Nak-young and other senior officials invited citizen representatives to hold a foot-washing ceremony during the opening ceremony.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Park Dong-wook] Gyeongju City, Gyeongsangbuk-do, which had been stigmatized as 'last place in external integrity' for three consecutive years, rose two levels from last year in this year's integrity evaluation conducted by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, receiving an overall grade of 3rd class.

According to the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission on the 9th, Gyeongju City recorded an overall 3rd class (7.83 points) in the '2020 Integrity Comprehensive Evaluation' among 75 basic local governments nationwide.

Looking at each category, in the external integrity evaluation conducted with 319 civil petitioners, it received a corruption experience score of 8.21 points, which is 0.19 points higher than the national city average of 8.02 points. In the corruption vulnerability evaluation, it recorded uniformly high scores such as ▲service management and supervision 9.64 points ▲subsidy support 9.52 points ▲tax administration 9.14 points ▲permits and approvals 8.21 points.

In the same evaluation, Gyeongju City rebounded once from 5th class in 2014-2015 to 3rd class in 2016, but from 2017 to last year, it again ranked last for three consecutive years.

Under the administration of Joo Nak-young, launched in July 2018, Gyeongju City has implemented various policies to wash away the dishonor of being at the bottom in integrity, including ▲establishing a direct 'Integrity CALL' to the mayor ▲hiring external auditors and introducing a citizen auditor system ▲reflecting integrity evaluation results of officials at team leader level and above in personnel decisions.

Also, at the opening ceremony on January 2 this year, Mayor Joo Nak-young and 12 senior officials invited 12 citizen representatives and held a foot-washing ceremony as a sign of their commitment to integrity, attracting attention.

Mayor Joo Nak-young of Gyeongju said, "We received generally high scores in external integrity evaluated by civil petitioners. It seems that there was a positive effect from Gyeongju City's efforts to prevent corruption so far," adding, "It is not yet a satisfactory level, so there is still a long way to go. We will continue to implement strong integrity policies to become a more transparent Gyeongju City."

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