Multiple Cases of 'Duty Discipline Laxity' Among Daejeon District Public Officials Detected in Audit

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] A series of violations of public officials' duty discipline at Daejeon Dong-gu Office and Daedeok-gu Office were uncovered in an audit.

On the 8th, according to Daejeon City, the City Audit Committee requested disposition for 52 cases at Dong-gu Office and 31 cases at Daedeok-gu Office through the '2021 Comprehensive Audit.'

The audit revealed numerous issues related to public officials' duty discipline, including improper use of parental leave and sick leave, negligence in managing flexible working hours, and public employees leaving their workplaces.

First, at Dong-gu Office, it was confirmed that among 244 public officials who took long-term leave from 2018 to this year (May), 10 stayed overseas for purposes inconsistent with their leave.

For example, public official A from Dong-gu Office submitted a diagnosis of anxiety disorder and took sick leave for one month starting June 2019, but was found during the audit to have traveled to Spain during the sick leave period.

Another public official B applied for one year of parental leave starting late 2018 and was found to have traveled overseas twice for a total of 17 days without their child during the leave period.

Additionally, at Dong-gu Office, a public employee was caught traveling overseas despite unauthorized tardiness and leaving the workplace.

The identified public employee did not adhere to the working hours specified in the employment contract (9 a.m. to 6 p.m.), traveled to the airport without department head approval, and departed for overseas travel. Furthermore, a public employee employed for less than a month was found to have improperly received one day of paid leave by not recording leave in the work status log while traveling overseas to be recognized as having perfect attendance for one month.

Many public officials who worked flexible hours were also found not to have recorded their clock-in and clock-out times. This violates the Ministry of the Interior and Safety’s 'Local Public Officials Flexible Work System Operation Guidelines,' which require flexible workers to record their attendance in the duty management system to prevent laxity in public officials' duty discipline.

At Daedeok-gu Office, from 2017 to 2020, a total of 473 people worked flexible hours, but 320 (67.7%) did not record their clock-in and clock-out times, making it difficult to verify actual work attendance according to the audit results.

In particular, one Daedeok-gu Office employee was found to have recorded attendance only 16 days during seven months of flexible work last year, failing to record clock-in and clock-out times on other days.

At Dong-gu Office, among 236 flexible work applicants from April last year to May this year, 90 (38.1%) did not record their clock-in and clock-out times.

An official from the City Audit Committee pointed out, "It is a principle that flexible work applicants record their clock-in and clock-out times through the duty management system," but added, "However, many autonomous district public officials do not comply, making it difficult to verify whether they actually worked."

He also stated, "The Audit Committee plans to check next year whether the issues uncovered in this year's audit have been improved."

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