Nominee served as aide to former Democratic Party lawmaker, auditor at Korea South Power

Union calls him 'complete outsider with no hands-on experience, a political payback appointment'

Jang Dae-deok (second from left, front row) and fellow members of the Busan Facilities Corporation union stage a protest against the appointment of the new chairman. [Busan Facilities Corporation union]
Jang Dae-deok (second from left, front row) and fellow members of the Busan Facilities Corporation union stage a protest against the appointment of the new chairman. [Busan Facilities Corporation union]

The Busan Facilities Corporation union has pushed back sharply against the nomination of Kim Myeong-su as the agency's new chairman, calling the appointment "a textbook case of political payback and a parachute posting."

In a statement released Wednesday, the union said Kim, who comes from an election campaign background, "has absolutely no understanding of or hands-on experience in the large-scale facility management and public safety work our corporation carries out." It added that his nomination was "nothing more than the product of backroom dealings driven by political connections and the whims of those in power," and that he was "in no way capable of running Busan Facilities Corporation for the benefit of the organization or the safety of its citizens."

Kim, who most recently served as a standing auditor at Korea South Power, previously worked as an aide to former Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker Kim Hae-young, a senior researcher at the Oryukdo Research Institute, and deputy chairman of the Democratic Party's Busan chapter nuclear power plant safety committee.

The union lashed out at Busan Mayor Jeon Jae-soo, saying he had "made grand promises at the start of his ninth elected-term administration about building a city government that citizens could feel was recovering and advancing by improving administrative effectiveness close to their daily lives — only to commit the blunder of nominating someone from an election campaign who has not even 1 percent of the on-the-ground expertise needed for facility safety management." It went on to say the union "can no longer trust Mayor Jeon or the ninth elected-term city administration, which calls for a 'field-first' approach in words while pushing through an 'inner-circle-first' personnel policy in practice."

The union declared a "state of emergency" and called on Busan city to withdraw Kim's nomination and follow through on field-centered personnel reform. It also urged Kim to acknowledge his lack of qualifications and step down voluntarily, and called on the Busan City Council to exercise its oversight authority to press for the nomination to be rescinded.


kaf2002@heraldcorp.com