Foreign ministry tightens discipline on diplomats

Ministry received lowest grade in anti-corruption commission’s transparency evaluation



Apparently appalled by the scandal over a diplomat’s alleged stock-rigging attempts, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade has begun tightening discipline, especially on diplomats working overseas.

The Foreign Ministry on Thursday said it has recently summoned a consul general from Wuhan in central China over opaque accounting practices. The ministry has been internally auditing the case after the diplomat was found to have used the Consulate General’s budget in an inappropriate manner, it said.

The consul general was referred to a central disciplinary committee, the ministry said, although he did not embezzle taxpayers’ money.

It is unprecedented that the ministry summoned a consul general for accounting malpractice.

The ministry’s action came as it is now rocked by allegations that suspended senior diplomat Kim Eun-seok, who was in charge of energy and resource diplomacy, intentionally published an overblown press release in December 2010 to drive up the stock price of CNK International in connection to its winning of diamond mining rights in Cameroon.

State watchdog the Board of Audit and Inspection asked the ministry to sack the energy envoy, who is also suspected of telling his relatives about the CNK information prior to the ministry’s distribution of the press release.

Earlier in the morning, Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan told a radio program he felt so embarrassed that he wanted to disappear for a moment.

“As the leader of the entire ministry, I am continuously searching for the most appropriate answer to take full responsibility,” Kim said.

The Foreign Ministry’s lacking discipline has been repeatedly criticized over the recent years.

In late 2010, several Korean diplomats at the consulate in Shanghai were accused of having extramarital affairs with a Chinese woman and leaking significant government information to her.

Although a government probe later found that the information did not include state secrets, the ministry was under scathing criticism that it dishonored the nation.

A few months before the Shanghai scandal, former Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan stepped down from his post after it was revealed that his daughter received special favor in landing a job at the ministry.

In January, the Foreign Ministry received the lowest grade for three consecutive years in the presidential Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission’s evaluation on the government offices’ anti-corruption prevention efforts.

The evaluation results show that the ministry has not made sufficient efforts to improve its transparency since the Shanghai scandal. 


By Kim Yoon-mi
(yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)