Presidential Office: "No Order for Mass Resignation of 1st-Level Ministry Officials... Ministers Have Authority"

Insa Renewal Dimension... Follow-up Procedures Temporarily On Hold

The Presidential Office stated on the 3rd that the collective resignation of first-grade public officials from some ministries "was not initiated under the direction of the Presidential Office."

The spokesperson office of the Presidential Office conveyed through a press release in the afternoon that "the relevant ministries received the resignations of first-grade public officials as part of personnel reform under the authority of the ministers, and the subsequent procedures have been temporarily put on hold due to the announcement of vice minister appointments."

It is known that all first-grade public officials in the Ministry of Environment submitted their resignations before personnel changes just prior to the June 29 cabinet reshuffle.

In the Ministry of Education, as criticism arose over the 'personnel exchange' system where government officials were appointed as secretaries of national universities, leading to accusations of departmental favoritism, 14 senior officials and deputy directors who had been dispatched to other ministries were collectively returned to the Operations Support Division.

It is also reported that some ministries, including the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, are preparing large-scale internal personnel changes.

President Yoon recently ordered five vice ministers, who were former secretaries of the Presidential Office, to take bold personnel actions, saying, "There are public officials who do not move at all even though the administration has changed, thinking that if they hold out a little longer, the administration will change again. Such officials should go to the National Assembly, not the government."

Because of this, some speculated that the Presidential Office had instructed first-grade public officials to submit resignations, but the Presidential Office clarified that the resignations of first-grade public officials in ministries are under the ministers' authority.

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