President promises ministers greater power over subordinates

By Byun Duk-kun
SEOUL, June 23 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak said Tuesday he will relegate
the management and appointment of senior officials to his Cabinet ministers, a
move intended to strengthen the ministers' control over their respective offices.
The move comes shortly after President Lee on Sunday named a complete outsider,
Baek Yong-ho, as the head of the National Tax Service.
A former professor at Seoul's Ewha Womans University, Baek has been serving as
head of the Fair Trade Commission since last year.
"From now on, I plan to leave the appointment of working-level officials at each
ministry to their ministers," the president was quoted as saying at a Cabinet
meeting. The ministers, in turn, will have to take full responsibility for any
reshuffle.
Lee also called for stepped up efforts to reform state-owned businesses, noting
most public firms did well in a 2008 evaluation, the results of which were
released last week, but that they needed to do more, according to his spokesman
Lee Dong-kwan.
"The evaluation was conducted more fairly and more strictly compared to previous
years," the president said. "But this must lead to reforms" that will improve
their efficiency, he was quoted as saying.
The president said reforming the education system was another urgent task facing
the country, with the notion of equal opportunity greatly undermined by excessive
dependence on expensive private education.
"In the past, poor people could get a job and cut the vicious cycle of children
inheriting poverty as long as they studied hard and went to college," the
president said.
But this is no longer possible because of the country's dependence on expensive
private education, he added.
"Therefore, we need to speed up our efforts to come up with measures that will
significantly reduce the amount of money spent on private education," the
president said.
bdk@yna.co.kr
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