This year’s parliamentary audit, which will mark the first conducted under the 20th National Assembly, is scheduled to begin Sept. 26 for a three-week run.
Wordy warfare between the ruling and opposition parties will likely intensify over the issue of the US and Korean governments’ accord to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense on the peninsula and North Korea’s fifth nuclear test earlier this month.
Rival parties have also been at loggerheads over whether to question Woo Byung-woo, a presidential secretary under investigation for corruption allegations, in the coming audit.
The budget issue for the Nuri free child care program will also be a key agenda item during audit sessions with related government agencies.
For the economic and financial policy sectors, lawmakers are expected to grill the Finance Ministry and Bank of Korea over fiscal soundness, low interest rates and the like. The Financial Services Commission could face criticism concerning the state-led restructuring of the shipbuilding and shipping industries.
Chances are high that both the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and Ministry of Health and Welfare will come into the spotlight over the efficacy of the tobacco tax hike.
Lawmakers of the 20th Assembly will also have the opportunity to oversee administrative affairs and hold in-depth discussions on policy matters ahead of budget deliberations.
However, in previous years, the audit sessions have frequently turned into a contest of political tirades by members of opposing parties, while senior administrators made perfunctory reports on their routine business and offered evasive answers to lawmakers’ questions.
The public usually expects a somewhat different outcome -- particularly among first-time lawmakers -- every fall. But the newcomers have proved they learn quickly from parliamentary traditions, especially in the area of adopting an overbearing attitude toward bureaucrats. Insufficient preparation and attention to trifling matters on the part of legislators are often a waste of time.
Nevertheless, annual Assembly audits are necessary for democratic governance. We hope that the 20th Assembly will not repeat undesirable practices.
Inspections backed by citizen’s taxes must be productive through the efforts of both lawmakers and government officials.
