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A Closer Look at Standing Committees’ Foreign Visits

Posted March. 16, 2007 07:06,   

한국어

Are Egypt and Greece the highlight of foreign excursions by lawmakers?

This news paper obtained and analyzed a report on foreign visits paid by the lawmakers of the 17th National Assembly. It was found that lawmakers’ official foreign visits, whose budget is allocated by the Assembly’s international bureau biennially, are still more like an excursion.

Is it a formal visit or sightseeing? In March 2005, in the name of ‘historic observation,’ six lawmakers from the cultural and tourism committee went to Egypt, Turkey, and Spain to see pyramids, the Valley of the Kings, the Alhambra Palace and Istanbul.

They submitted a 184-page report after returning to Korea.

The report consisted only of copied information on ancient ruins and culture, general explanations of cultural policies of those countries and tips for tourists with simple statement of the purpose and itinerary of the visit. The budget allocated for the trip was 75.89 million won. There was an assistant who went with each of the lawmakers and each person of the visiting party spent over 10 million won of taxpayers’ money on the trip.

In August 2006, four lawmakers from the environment and labor committee visited Egypt and then Greece, Switzerland and Singapore. Under the pretext of visiting environment preservation areas, in Egypt they went to the Giza Pyramid, the Valley of the Kings, and a number of temples; in Greece they visited the Parthenon, the Corinth Canal and the ruins of Mycenae. They produced a 115-page report filled with copied information on the geography and history of the countries and transcripts of their discussions with local officials. The total expense of the trip was 60.24 million won. There were also assistants accompanying the lawmaker, each of which spent some 10 million won.

In May 2005, five lawmakers from the defense committee took a ten-day trip to Japan and the U.S. to visit Nara area, Osaka Castle, the Green Palace and Hawaii.

It seems clear that the visits by the committee members have little in common with the work these committees do. They just visited locations that they would rarely get the chance to see in their day-to-day lives. It is more like sightseeing.

The committees have visited Egypt, Greece and the U.S. five times; Turkey, Sweden, the Czech Republic and Peru four times; and Kenya, South Africa, Brazil and Mexico three times. Of the total of 34 visits, none were to China. By the end of last year, standing committees of the National Assembly spent 1.66 billion won of taxpayers’ money on formal foreign visits.

Rushing to go on a trip? It seems standing committees are trying to go on foreign excursions as early as possible this year. And the reason for this appears to be the approaching presidential election in December. If campaigning for the election is in high gear, it would be difficult for officials to visit foreign countries.

Of the ten committees that had received budget funding for this year’s foreign visits, five of them had already traveled abroad in January. The operating committee divided its members into four groups according to their parity affiliation and sent them to Vietnam and New Zealand. The legal, cultural and tourism construction and transportation, and political committees’ members visited Turkey, Greece, Australia and India for between 8 and 14 days.

Two of the remaining five committee members are scheduled to go abroad in May. Almost all committees have plans to go abroad within the first half of the year.

Most of excursions are funded by the standing committees’ own budget, not the budget of the international bureau, and are also scheduled within the first half of the year. Members of the finance and economy committee are visiting South American countries for nine days under the pretext of a field trip for electronic customs clearance.

Profligate visits by Speakers of the National Assembly-

Speakers spent 184.5 million won per visit. Former speaker Kim Won-ki went to foreign countries including the U.S. and Mexico on five occasions. Current speaker Lim Chae-jeong went to the Netherlands and Ukraine on two occasions, and is now on a 13-day visit to South American countries.

The speaker’s office explained, “In the case of the speaker, he or she is accompanied by a five person entourages, including his chief of staff, chief press secretary, three members of the international bureau, protocol staff, and interpreters.

The deputy speaker also goes abroad with his or her party colleagues once a year.

A National Assembly Secretariat report entitled The reality of lawmaker diplomacy and means of improvement, points out that “In Korea, lawmakers are not required to report on their visits, nor are their visits reviewed in a meeting. All they are required to do is submit a report on their visits. Therefore, it is very difficult to evaluate the results of their visits. In the U.S., lawmakers are required to turn in an open and detailed paper on their visits within 30 days of their return. In Germany, legislator’s formal visits to foreign countries are limited to just one during their four-year term in office.”