The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said on the 10th that it held the fifth meeting of the "task force on resolving third-party wrongful interference" at the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises in Yeouido, Seoul, chaired by First Vice Minister No Yong-seok, and discussed ways to block illegal broker involvement in the review process for government support programs.
Policy finance institutions and related agencies, including the Korean National Police Agency, the Financial Supervisory Service, Korea SMEs and Startups Agency (KOSME), the Korea Federation of Credit Guarantee Foudations (KOREG), the Korea Technology Finance Corporation (KOTEC), and the Korea Federation of Small and Medium Enterprises, took part in the meeting.
The meeting discussed measures to improve the review system to block third-party proxy applications and proxy drafting in the process of applying for government support programs. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) plans to expand, starting in the second half of this year, a system that checks whether the same IP was used for applications and whether business plans are similar or duplicated across policy funds, research and development (R&D), and subsidies.
To prevent broker involvement that touts personal ties with evaluators, the government will also push improvements to the review process, including adopting a random draw method for selecting external evaluators, limiting the number of review participations, increasing the number of evaluators, and operating first- and second-round evaluators separately.
To reduce corporations' burden in preparing business plans, the meeting also discussed introducing a system to support plan drafting and expanding pre-planning support for R&D.
They also shared the operational status of illegal broker reporting centers set up at policy finance institutions. The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) said it plans to pay, for the first time, reporting rewards of up to 2 million won per case for three cases received by the reporting centers that were referred to the police for investigation.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) is also reviewing directions for legislating related systems, including defining and prohibiting wrongful interference in the process of applying for policy funds, codifying procedures for requests for investigation, and establishing grounds for whistleblower protection and reward systems.
Earlier, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) said it signed business agreements with six related agencies and online platforms such as Soomgo and Kmong to eradicate third-party wrongful interference in government support programs, building a cooperative system to respond to illegal brokers and block "exaggerated" advertising.
First Vice Minister No Yong-seok said, "We expect the payment of reporting rewards to spur more reports of illegal brokers," adding, "We will strengthen our response to third-party wrongful interference through improvements to the review system and institutional refinements."