About 36 percent of former and incumbent senior members of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD), the nation’s largest civic group, have held positions in government and on affiliated committees over the last 12 years, according to a report.

Their positions at those state organizations have increased as time goes by, and experts warn that civic groups are losing their role as monitors of the government.
Sociology professor Lew Seok-choon at Yonsei University yesterday released a report on the PSPD’s 416 members who worked as the group’s heads, secretary generals and directors since the group’s establishment in September 1994.

Among the 416, 158 people, or 36.1 percent, have held 313 posts at Chong Wa Dae, ministries, government-affiliated committees and other government agencies.
Of the 313 posts, 121 were jobs at Chong Wa Dae or presidential committees, while 88 posts belonged to ministries.

Forty-two posts were at independent agencies, 35 at the prime minister’s office, 12 with the National Assembly, and 10 at local governments.

During the Kim Young-sam administration until 1998, the number of PSPD members holding government-related positions was 22. But the figure jumped to 113 during the Kim Dae-jung government between 1998 and 2003, and to 158 in the Roh Moo-hyun administration, according to the report.

Lee Baek-man, senior presidential secretary for public information, was a PSPD director, while Kwon Oh-seung, chairman of the Fair Trade Commission, was an advisor, and Choi Young-do, former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, was the head of the civic group until he was appointed to the commission.

A dozen former PSPD members have also held top government posts: Prime Minister Han Myeong-sook; Culture and Tourism Minister Kim Myung-gon; former Education and Human Resources Development Minister Yoon Deok-hong; and former Labor Minister Kim Dae-hwan.

The civic group’s article stipulates PSPD senior members cannot concurrently hold public office, but members held 75 of these while they were still working for the group. Another 57 percent of the posts were held by members after they finished working for the group.

''The role of civic groups is to monitor and check authority, so they should be independent from the government. However, as the government and civil society share the network of manpower, civic groups are becoming government- and power-oriented,’’ Lew said.

Regarding the report, Kim Ki-sik, secretary general of the PSPD, said, ''Many are registered as group members but are not actually active in group affairs. Thus, categorizing them as senior members is an exaggeration.’’

He also claimed it is unacceptable to categorize working for government-affiliated committees in ''public office activity,’’ as being pro-government as some positions on the committee are assigned to the public.

“In the current government, which has been dubbed a 'committee republic,’ government-affiliated committees have had actual power to decide policy, and so it cannot be denied that the PSPD has influenced government policy-making to some extent,’’ Lew said.

By Kim Rahn rahnita@koreatimes.co.kr