Retooling government

What matters are not organizations but their operations

Restructuring the government has become one of the traditional tasks of newly-elected leaders in Korea. Park Geun-hye is no exception. There may be little wrong with the organizational reboot ― why not put new wine into new bottles? ― except Korea is perhaps the only country to do so every five years.

The governmental overhaul unveiled by Park’s transition team Tuesday calls for, among others, restoring the position of deputy prime minister for the purpose of becoming the “control tower” of economic policy, and creating a mega department with the somewhat grandiose title of the Ministry of Future, Creation and Science in word-to-word translation.

Officials cite economic revival and building a safer society as the two key concepts for revamping the government, reflecting Park’s campaign pledges. So far, so good, it seems.

Yet a closer look into details of this shakeup reveals those behind it stepped back five years, 15 years or even 20 years.

For example, the latest plan also revived the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, which the Lee Myung-bak administration abolished in 2008. The Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources retook its trade-negotiating function which it lost to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1998. The deputy prime minister for the economy disappeared in 1997, reappeared in 2001, disappeared again in 2008 and is now set to reappear once more this year.

Korea has conducted at least 50 shakeups in governmental organization and structure in the past 64 years. The names and functions of its finance and trade-industry ministries have changed four times each in fewer than two decades. Only two ministries ― defense and justice ― remained unscathed over the years. Compare these with the United States where the Department of Homeland Security is the only new agency added in the past 25 years while its treasury department has remained so for 223 years. It is beyond doubt which government is more consistent and effective.

Leaders should no longer regard the retooling of the government as a victor’s trophy but focus on how to wring maximum efficiency from the existing organization. The only good thing one can say about Park’s plan is that it has mostly returned the government set-up, badly mangled by the Lee administration, back to its original state five years ago.

What’s needed for the new government to become a success is how to make best use of the augmentations. The economic deputy premiership, for instance, should no longer be a symbol of government-led development as it was decades ago, but be remade into a coordinating role for growth. In a worst-case scenario, the new mega ministry, which combines the science-technology and information-communication ministries, may experience a schism caused by the two contrasting tasks of seeking long-term scientific development while making short-term IT adjustments.

It was disappointing that the overall plan failed to touch the problem-ridden financial regulatory system in keeping with the global trend, and readjust the role of the labor ministry to better deal with the plights of workers. The new president must make up for these absences by applying effective operational acumen.

Here’s hoping that Park will be the last candidate, at least in the next decade, who makes the retooling of our government a campaign pledge. She could start on a good foot by changing the strange name for the new mega ministry. <The Korea Times>