The Board of Audit and Inspection announced that the government's basic water management plan overlaps, leading to policy confusion, and requested that it be reorganized. The board pointed out the need to amend overlapping policies to prevent policy confusion and budget waste.
The Board of Audit and Inspection also notified the Ministry of Environment to prepare a plan to reflect regulations included in internal guidelines through prior regulatory review and incorporate them into laws and regulations. There are concerns that environmental regulations may be excessively enforced while being established as internal guidelines without prior regulatory review.
On the 8th, the Board of Audit and Inspection announced the results of the 'regular audit of the Ministry of Environment.' The board stated that the establishment of the 'Framework Act on Water Management' in 2018 unified water management responsibilities under the Ministry of Environment, highlighting the need for related policy reorganization and reflecting complaints regarding indiscreet new environmental regulations in this audit.
The audit found that the Ministry of Environment's water management policies are excessively overlapping. The audit pointed out that while subordinate plans following the 'National Water Environment Management Basic Plan' and the 'Long-term Comprehensive Plan for Water Resources' need to be reorganized to prevent policy confusion and budget waste, the existing plans are being retained as they are, causing administrative waste.
Specifically, among the 15 legally mandated items of the 'National Water Management Basic Plan,' 9 items were found to be similar to those in the existing plans, 'National Water Environment Management Basic Plan' and 'Long-term Comprehensive Plan for Water Resources,' excluding 3 items. There were also 5 items that were duplicated across all three plans.
In response, the Board of Audit and Inspection instructed the Minister of Environment to reorganize the existing plans to ensure that the core strategies and objectives of the 'National Water Management Basic Plan,' the highest national basic plan of water management, are systematic and coherent.
Excessive establishment of regulations was also pointed out. The Ministry of Environment is currently operating environmental regulations based on 79 laws, including the 'Air Quality Preservation Act' and the 'Water Quality Preservation Act.'
The 'Basic Act on Administrative Regulation' stipulates that regulatory matters must undergo prior regulatory review by the Regulatory Reform Committee before being established in laws and regulations; however, it appears that the Ministry of Environment has been operating these regulations as internal guidelines without undergoing prior regulatory review.
The Board of Audit and Inspection expressed concerns that such regulations may be enforced arbitrarily by heads of agencies or local governments without legal foundations.
In response, the Board of Audit and Inspection instructed the Minister of Environment to thoroughly carry out related tasks to ensure that regulatory matters are not included in operations without regulatory review in internal guidelines, and to prepare a plan to undergo prior regulatory review for those regulatory matters currently operated under internal guidelines, incorporating them into laws or abolishing them.
There were also criticisms regarding the Ministry of Environment's improper dispatch of employees from affiliated organizations. It has been found that the ministry is officially operating with over 30 dispatched employees from affiliated organizations such as the Korea Environmental Corporation and private organizations.
In particular, it was revealed that during the inspection of the utilization of private experts conducted at the request of the Ministry of Personnel Management, the ministry reported inaccurately that there were no unofficially dispatched personnel over a total of 7 instances, including the third quarter of 2020.
Consequently, the Board of Audit and Inspection notified that external personnel dispatched from affiliated organizations and related agencies should be returned to their original institutions, and those responsible for inadequately conducting checks on dispatched personnel operations and submitting results that were inaccurate received a 'request for caution' measure.