A survey found that 1 in 10 public officials paid out of pocket to treat their superiors to a meal.
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the Ministry of Personnel Management announced on the 15th that a survey on the 'Day of Treating Executives', targeted at central and local government officials, showed that 11.1% responded that they had experienced the 'Day of Treating Executives.' As of April, this means that 1 in 10 public officials had such an experience in the past month.
The Day of Treating Executives is a practice where public officials ranked 7 to 9 take turns providing meals to superiors with personnel evaluation authority, such as Director Generals and Directors, out of their own pockets. It is cited as one of the longstanding bad practices in the public service.
Though this practice is on the decline each year, it continues to occur annually. Among central public officials, 7.7% experienced the Day of Treating Executives, a decrease of 2.4 percentage points from the previous survey last November (10.1%). During the same period, local government officials had a rate of 12.2%, down 11.7 percentage points.
Park Yong-soo, head of the Ministry of Personnel Management, noted, "We will diligently implement follow-up measures, such as the establishment of an anonymous reporting center within the electronic personnel management system (e-People), to completely eradicate unfair practices."
Kim Min-jae, acting Minister of the Interior and Safety, said, "We will continue to identify and improve unreasonable practices within the public service to create an environment where public officials can focus on their work."