Political Secretary Manipulates Personnel Decisions?..."Why No Consultation?" Boss Snaps in Anger

Suspicions of Political Secretary Involvement in This Year's First Half Work Evaluations

Civil Servants' Union: "Fairness Principles and Organizational Structure Both Collapsed"

[Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yukbong] The political secretary of Naju City, considered to be the mayor's closest aide, caused an uproar within the public service community by overstepping authority in personnel matters.

According to Naju City on the 30th, the Work Performance Evaluation Committee, composed of six members including Chairman Jeong Chankyoon, finalized the rankings and scores for the first half of this year’s work evaluations for employees at grade 5 and below (1,127 people) on the 25th.

The evaluations were decided based on the first assessment by department heads and the second assessment by bureau and office chiefs. Receiving a good score in the work evaluation can place an employee on the promotion candidate list. For grades 6 to 7, the average of two years is taken, and for grades 8 to 9, the average of one year is used.

Two days after the work evaluation results were finalized, on the 27th, an incident occurred.

Grade 6 political secretary A visited General Affairs Director B and questioned, "Why did you submit the employee work evaluations without consulting the political team?" During this confrontation, emotions ran high and reportedly escalated to raised voices.

A’s demand infringes on the function of the evaluation committee chaired by the vice mayor and adds weight to suspicions that there had been covert favoritism in personnel matters.

The reason for A’s anger was also unreasonable. A’s main duties include policy decision support, monitoring central government trends, and coordinating interdepartmental work, and A holds no authority related to work evaluations.

The National Public Officials Union Naju Branch also issued a statement that day, pointing out, "This controversy completely undermines the fairness and trust of public officials’ work evaluations and, above all, is the result of a collapsed organizational system."

They added, "This is clear evidence that the political secretary has been deeply involved in employee work evaluations," and claimed, "It raises suspicions of unfair personnel practices such as the rapid promotion of certain public officials."

Finally, they said, "This cannot be called a normal organization; it is deeply shameful and distressing," and urged, "Naju City must promptly uncover the substantive truth."

The union’s website free bulletin board is also experiencing strong backlash. Comments such as "If this is visible, how much more is invisible? It’s really frustrating," "Is this fuss because this has been happening just recently?" and "Naju City administration should be ashamed" are being posted.

Multiple calls were made to A to inquire whether there was improper involvement in personnel matters, but none were answered.

Naju = Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Kim Yukbong bong2910@asiae.co.kr

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