Civil servants seek to avoid Sejong City move

Less than 10 months before 36 government agencies are to move to Sejong City in South Chungcheong Province, many civil servants are looking for ways to avoid relocation.

Sitting by the construction site in full swing, next to nothing but a field of incomplete apartment blocks in Sejong City, a couple agreed not to make the second administrative town their new home.

Lee, a deputy director at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy who declined to give her full name, found it difficult to imagine settling into a new home that would force her husband commute to Seoul everyday.

She is applying to move to the National Science & Technology Council, a state agency that will remain in Seoul.

“(The effect of) relocating to Sejong City has become only real to me recently when I started receiving promotional leaflets from construction companies. But there is no way I could settle into the town without forcing great sacrifices on my husband and baby,” she said.

“Who else would take care of my 2-year-old girl other than my mom in Seoul? Sejong City has no daycare centers and I also can’t make my husband, who has late-night shifts half the week, waste so much time commuting back and forth,” she added.

She is only one of 14,000 civil servants faced with the prospect of moving.

Some of Lee’s female colleagues are trying to plan their pregnancies in time to take maternity leave during the relocation period.

“One I know plans to take one. We can have one to three years of unpaid maternity leave,” she said.

The Prime Minister’s Office will be the first to relocate, followed by the Finance Ministry in December, and the entire relocation is due to be completed by the end of 2014.

The controversial project was aimed at dividing the central government to support balanced regional development. The idea is to decentralize Seoul, the most densely populated city in the OECD, but the relocation is feared to cause massive administrative inefficiency, as the National Assembly will stay in Seoul.

The government has set aside 22.5 trillion won for the new city, with a potential population of 500,000 by 2030.

Many have their doubts.

“A lot of us with kids in junior high or above are choosing to live away from their family by getting a studio down in Sejong or something. The complaints are massive from those who are still single,” a director at the Finance Ministry, identified only by his last name of Kim, said.

“Director-level officials, or even deputy-directors in my department, go to the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul, for parliamentary audits and conference meetings. I expect administrative inefficiency to worsen,” Kim added.

The majority of those who pass the civil service exam are given a grade five post such as deputy director. The government last year reformed the system to hire more people based on their credentials and interviews, but the open exam still remains the main way of landing a jobs at central government agencies. The Finance Ministry, regarded one of the most prestigious agencies to work for, is losing its popularity after it was announced as one of the first to relocate to Sejong City, Kim said.

“The Finance Ministry has been first choice for many public official trainees, and it still is, but a lot of them now prioritize the Financial Services Commission,” Kim said.

The Financial Services Commission, which oversees banks, brokerages and the market, will remain in Yeouido. 

By Cynthia J. Kim (cynthiak@heraldcorp.com)