Minister Han Seong-sook of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups rebuked affiliated public institutions that received low scores in public institution integrity evaluations and ordered them to make improvements by the end of the year.
The Minister stated accordingly on Dec. 12 at the Government Sejong Convention Center in Sejong while receiving business reports from affiliated public institutions.
The Minister said, "Public institutions spend tax money and do public work, so I believe they must at least receive good marks in integrity evaluations," and noted, "Now that the results have already been made public, have each institution check once more why it received low scores and review, by institution, whether improvements are needed."
She continued, "Improvement measures such as consulting through specialized institutions have been prepared, so please use them actively to improve integrity," and explained, "If the evaluation results are low at the end of the year, I will reflect this (scores) in the year-end performance evaluation."
She added, "I believe we should take a stricter view of cases where integrity evaluation results are low without particularly reasonable grounds."
Among public institutions under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), the Korea Institute of Startup and Entrepreneurship Development (KISED) and the Small Enterprise and Market Service recently received Grade 4 (insufficient) in the Anti-Corruption & Civil Rights Commission's 2025 comprehensive integrity evaluation of public institutions.
The evaluation, conducted annually, measures the overall integrity level of public institutions to support anti-corruption efforts across agencies, such as improving areas vulnerable to corruption, and to spread integrity awareness and culture. It surveys perceived integrity and effort and assigns a comprehensive grade.
Grade 1 is excellent, Grade 2 is good, and Grade 3 is average. Grade 4 is insufficient, and Grade 5 is failing. However, among the 21 institutions in the focused category of public service-related organizations that include KISED, none received Grade 5, making Grade 4 effectively the lowest.
The Korea Small and Medium Business Corporation improved its comprehensive integrity in the 2024 survey but remained at Grade 3, the average level, in this survey.
Among the 11 public institutions (subject to the National Assembly inspection) under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), none received the highest Grade 1. Two institutions—the Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KOTEC) (Grade 2) and the Korea Credit Guarantee Fund (KODIT) (Grade 2)—received the highest grades among affiliated agencies.