[2022 National Audit] Korea Research Foundation Unaware of Employee's 'False Resume' for Nearly a Year

Rep. Heo Eun-a of the People Power Party Points Out Issues at the October 18 National Assembly Audit

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] The National Research Foundation of Korea, a public institution under the Ministry of Science and ICT, failed to detect an employee who was hired using someone else’s credentials for nearly a year, revealing a significant flaw in the recruitment management system.

On the 18th, Heo Eun-ah, a member of the People Power Party, pointed this out during a National Assembly audit by the Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee while questioning the foundation. According to Representative Heo, the foundation discovered the false credentials of an employee who joined in July 2020 only a year later, in July 2021, and canceled the employee’s labor contract in December.

It was confirmed that this was revealed not through the foundation’s own investigation or audit results, but through a report by the victim. The employee had listed the experience of another student who participated in a project together in 2018 as their own experience and was hired by the foundation. However, the full truth came to light after the victim, who learned of this belatedly, reported it.

The foundation explained that it failed to detect the fraudulent hiring for nearly a year because it used a “blind recruitment method,” which prevented securing supporting documents. It was confirmed that the employee received approximately 71.03 million KRW in salary and allowances over 1 year and 5 months, but considering past precedents, the foundation stated it has no plans to recover the salary, citing that labor activities performed cannot be invalidated even if the labor contract is canceled. The foundation had never separately reported this matter to its superior agency, the Ministry of Science and ICT, so the ministry had not even grasped the facts more than a year after the incident occurred.

Representative Heo criticized, “This is not just a problem of one employee hired through recruitment corruption, but an issue of the countless young people whose opportunities were taken away because of that one person,” and added, “Despite the emergence of recruitment issues that public institutions should be most vigilant about, the National Research Foundation’s malpractice of covering it up internally and the Ministry of Science and ICT’s incompetence in failing to detect it for over a year despite annual full investigations into recruitment corruption.” She also urged, “I hope that unfair recruitment corruption within agencies under the Ministry of Science and ICT will never happen again and that strict measures will be taken to improve the recruitment system to ensure fairness.”

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