Gyeongnam Province announced on the 19th that it achieved the highest comprehensive integrity rating among 17 metropolitan councils nationwide in the 2024 Comprehensive Integrity Evaluation organized by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.
Regarding this achievement, the province evaluated that “all employees of Gyeongnam Province actively participated with a consensus aiming to reach the top rank in comprehensive integrity through preventive improvement of integrity practices and system establishment, as well as intensive improvement in areas vulnerable to corruption.” The establishment of an official inspection organization since the 8th civilian government to preemptively block corrupt practices of public officials was particularly highlighted as a major factor.
This year, Gyeongnam Province developed improvement strategies for vulnerable sectors and actively promoted priority improvement tasks. They also focused on strengthening integrity education, enhancing the responsibility of senior officials, revising systems to encourage proactive administration, and improving organizational culture led by agency heads and labor unions, which helped recover their top ranking nationwide.
Gyeongnam’s integrity, which had lingered at the lower end after 2019, significantly climbed to 3rd place nationwide (comprehensive 2nd grade) following the launch of the 8th civilian government in 2022. However, last year it dropped to a comprehensive 3rd grade.
The province fully implemented 28 institutional improvement tasks recommended by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission and was the first nationwide to implement the ‘Anti-Corruption 3 Zero Campaign,’ which discourages meal hospitality, gifts, and bullying with job-related individuals. They also ran the ‘Integrity Seodang’ for communication and discussion with department members and laid the foundation for integrity collaboration through an agreement with the provincial government union last May.
The province plans to actively respond with tailored measures to maintain the top level of integrity next year.
Gyeongnam Governor Park Wan-su stated, “We have been actively communicating with internal and external customers through various online and offline methods and enhancing field visits to meet the residents’ expectations,” and urged, “Taking the achievement of the highest comprehensive integrity rating in seven years as an opportunity, all public officials in Gyeongnam Province should sustain efforts to perform their duties fairly and with integrity under the belief that ‘integrity leads to citizens’ happiness.'”