[Inside Chodong] The T.P.O of the National Assembly Audit

"The data requests that started in July were of a volume that made it impossible to work. But looking at the inquiries, I wonder if they even read the materials." "It's not just a day or two, but when you think about the time spent preparing and having to wait until late at night, it makes you feel a sense of self-disgust."

These were the disgruntled remarks recently exchanged by an official from a public institution and an executive from a private company regarding the National Assembly audit. Another company executive even said, "Shouldn't we study the impact of the audit on South Korea's productivity in the third quarter?" It was a half-joking, passing comment, but it was a self-deprecating remark from someone resigned after a long explanation.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The massive data submission orders from lawmakers’ offices, both vertically and horizontally, and the overlapping requests by standing committees, often lead to a hollow result despite barely responding. Some witnesses are nothing more than tools set up for the lawmaker to make political statements they want to deliver, rather than to provide testimony. Have they forgotten that during the audit period, the National Assembly is not a political stage but a place to oversee the nation's finances and administration?

Conversely, some witnesses, reference persons, and officials from audited institutions also behave absurdly. On the 15th, at the National Assembly Environment and Labor Committee audit, Jeong In-seop, president of Hanwha Ocean Geoje Plant, who appeared as a witness, smiled and took photos with Hani, a member of NewJeans who came as a reference person to testify about workplace harassment at the company, drawing public criticism. The criticism was severe given the serious background of a worker’s death accident at Hanwha Ocean. It was also clear that Hanwha Ocean’s industrial accident approval rate was 1.3% of all workers (according to the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, as of August), higher than those of peer companies Hyundai Heavy Industries (1.0%) and Samsung Heavy Industries (0.7%).

On the same day, the ruling and opposition parties engaged in an unnecessarily long debate after Science, Technology, Information and Communication Committee Chairperson Choi Min-hee took photos of Hani at the National Assembly entrance and reportedly met her separately. While curiosity and interest in a famous celebrity cannot be criticized, have they forgotten that the place they stood was not a concert hall or a fan signing event, but the audit venue?

The repeated recesses caused by emotional clashes between ruling and opposition lawmakers or the ‘attitude’ of witnesses are also frustrating. The verbal dispute over Chairperson Choi’s meeting with Hani eventually led to a recess. At that day’s Public Administration and Security Committee audit, Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s attitude?smirking and responding sharply while defending himself with "Am I a criminal?"?provoked loud shouts of "You’re being cheeky" from opposition lawmakers, ending in a recess. Mayor Oh later posted the video of the incident, somewhat unrelated to city administration, on his YouTube channel titled "I dropped a fact bomb on the Democratic Party lawmakers’ nonsense."

This bitter development is a common scene in audits too numerous to mention individually. Derogatory terms like ‘you’ or ‘your’ and fixed phrases such as "What did you just say?" or "How dare you shout at me?" emerge behind the shield of ‘insulting the National Assembly.’ Some witnesses sneered with unpleasant expressions or uttered profanity. The humiliation is what the public watching this barroom brawl-like scene under the name of the National Assembly audit would feel. Is it too much to ask everyone involved in the audit to show behavior appropriate to the time (T), place (P), and situation (O)?

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