Muan County Council Urges Full Reconsideration of Jeonnam Province Eastern Regional Headquarters Expansion and Organizational Restructuring

"Nothing More Than the 'Expansion of Appearance' by the Dongbu Regional Headquarters"

"Premature and Will Only Worsen Regional Imbalances"

The Muan County Council of Jeollanam-do (Chairman Kim Kyung-hyun) issued a statement on the 13th, urging a complete reconsideration of the “organizational restructuring plan to expand the Eastern Regional Headquarters” promoted by Jeollanam-do.

This statement was made in response to Jeollanam-do’s plan to expand the Eastern Regional Headquarters to four departments and bureaus with a staff of 320 ahead of the opening of the Eastern Integrated Government Building scheduled for July.

The statement was delivered at 1 p.m. in the main chamber of the Muan County Council, with Vice Chairman Lim Dong-hyun reading the full text on behalf of the council members.

Im Dong-hyun, the vice chairman, is delivering a statement on behalf of the members of the Muan County Council.
[Photo by Oh Hwan-joo]

Through the statement, the county council began by saying, “This organizational restructuring plan is a hastily assembled mechanical division and integration of departments without serious consideration of the unique roles and directions of each department, and it is nothing more than an attempt to ‘inflate the size’ of the Eastern Regional Headquarters.”

They added, “At a time when strategic functions of the provincial government’s main office and integrated administration are desperately needed to respond to the crisis of local extinction and to promote balanced regional development, the governor is solely focused on ‘political calculations.’”

They continued, “If this restructuring plan is implemented as is, the original purpose of relocating the Jeollanam-do provincial office for balanced development between the eastern and western regions will be greatly diminished,” and “Furthermore, it is clear that regional imbalances caused by the ‘concentration in the eastern region’ will worsen.”

The council also stated, “Since Namak New Town has not even reached half of its planned population and has experienced repeated ups and downs, it would not be too late to implement this after it has sufficiently established its self-sustainability as the central city of the southwestern region,” and emphasized, “If the provincial government stubbornly ignores the already tilted balance and continues to handle major provincial affairs with a simplistic one-to-one exchange approach, the path to balanced development between the east and west will be far off.”

Finally, the statement concluded, “We absolutely cannot accept this organizational restructuring plan that will further exacerbate regional imbalances and hinder the efficiency of provincial administration, and we strongly urge a complete reconsideration of it.”

Meanwhile, the ordinance related to this restructuring plan is scheduled to be reviewed by the standing committee of the Jeollanam-do Provincial Council on the 15th and is expected to be finalized in June.

Muan = Honam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Oh Hwan-joo just8440@asiae.co.kr

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