SR CEO Jongguk Lee Resigns, Taking Responsibility for D Grade in Management Evaluation

Jongguk Lee, CEO of Suseo High-Speed Rail (SR), tendered his resignation on June 20. On the same day, SR announced, "CEO Lee has submitted his resignation to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, taking responsibility for the results of the '2024 Public Institution Management Evaluation' announced by the Ministry of Economy and Finance." Last year, SR received a grade of C, but in this year's evaluation, it was downgraded to grade D, which corresponds to "insufficient."

CEO Lee was appointed in December 2021, during the final days of the Moon Jae-in administration. He is a former government official who previously served as Director of the Railway Safety Planning Division at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, Director of the Busan Regional Aviation Administration, and President of Busan Transportation Corporation. Although his term officially ended in December last year, he continued to fulfill his duties due to delays in the appointment of a successor amid political turmoil.

Jongguk Lee SR CEO. Photo by Hyunmin Kim

According to the detailed evaluation disclosed by the Ministry of Economy and Finance, SR actually scored slightly higher than the previous year in quantitative indicators, receiving 64.765 points. However, in the discretionary bonus points category (out of a maximum of 5 points), which reflects the evaluation committee’s subjective judgment, SR received 2.628 points?more than 0.4 points lower than last year's 3.022?leading to the downgrade.

In particular, the newly included "performance in implementing national policy tasks" category appears to have influenced the downgrade, as SR scored only 0.8 out of a possible 2 points. However, the specific criteria used to evaluate this category have not been sufficiently shared with the public.

For this reason, some observers argue that it is difficult to view this year’s evaluation results as a simple performance assessment. There is also analysis suggesting that, since President Jaemyung Lee pledged "high-speed rail integration" as a campaign promise, this may be a strategic move to facilitate the integration of KORAIL and SR.

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