Ministry of the Interior and Safety Subordinate Agencies' Work Report... Prevention of 'Escal Reverse Running' and Response to Population Extinction

Report Meeting of 11 Affiliated Organizations Held on the 14th
Policy Promotion in Four Areas: 'Public Safety, Local Era, Local Finance, Digital Platform Government'

Affiliated organizations under the Ministry of the Interior and Safety will promote policies in four areas this year: 'Public Safety, Local Era, Local Finance, and Digital Platform Government.' They also plan to address long-term challenges such as accident prevention measures like preventing escalator reverse operation and population extinction. Management performance evaluations for affiliated organizations will also be strengthened.

On the 14th, the Ministry of the Interior and Safety held the 2024 work briefing at the Government Seoul Office, chaired by Minister Lee Sang-min, with 11 affiliated organizations including the Korea Elevator Safety Agency in attendance. During the briefing, policies in the four areas and major projects by each organization were reviewed, and ways to promptly resolve outcomes that the public can feel were discussed.

First, in the area of public safety, the Korea Elevator Safety Agency will conduct safety evaluations and special inspections of auxiliary brakes and overspeed reverse prevention devices newly installed on subway escalators in seven metropolitan cities and provinces nationwide to prevent escalator reverse operation accidents. To this end, through special inspections of 8,301 escalators installed at 16 railway management institutions nationwide, 435 cases were improved last month, and 53 malfunctioning parts of the same model as the device involved in the accident at Sunae Station were replaced.

The budget for support funds for special disaster areas has also been expanded. The Korea Local Finance Guarantee Fund secured 3.17 billion KRW in support funds, a 59% increase from 2 billion KRW last year, to aid recovery efforts in special disaster areas.

In the local era sector, the Korea Institute of Local Administration plans to conduct 'living population big data analysis' starting this year and operate the 'Population Decline Response Center.' The analysis data results will be provided semiannually to related ministries and local governments to support their use as basic data for population decline response projects. The Korea Local Finance Guarantee Fund will develop a 'missing property discovery program' to increase the value of shared properties owned by local governments. Approximately 5.23 million land parcels and about 160,000 buildings will be thoroughly surveyed.

The National Information Society Agency will expand the Digital Government Cooperation Center from six countries to eight countries. This is to support the overseas expansion of domestic digital companies and assist partner countries with digital government policies and technologies.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety plans to further strengthen management performance evaluations for affiliated organizations, which have been conducted since 2012. From this year, the criteria for appointing evaluation committee members will be tightened to the level of the 'Improper Solicitation and Graft Act' applied to public officials, and all profit-making activities by evaluation committee members during their term for all evaluated organizations will be prohibited. Appointment of committee members will be restricted if the total economic compensation received from evaluated organizations for services or consulting over the past three years exceeds 9 million KRW.

Minister Lee urged the affiliated organizations, saying, "Please enter the field of people’s livelihoods, listen to even the smallest voices, and take the lead in changing the lives of the people," and added, "I ask for continuous management innovation to reduce the burden on the public and provide high-quality services."

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