Public institutions that have seen a string of fatal industrial accidents mostly received "average or above" in safety management grade evaluations. Critics said the system is effectively toothless because actual accidents do not match the evaluation results.
According to the analysis report "Status and issues of public institutions for the 2025 parliamentary audit" released by the National Assembly Budget Office on the 19th, the number of fatal industrial accident victims at public institutions last year was tallied at 31. A cumulative 173 people lost their lives to industrial accidents over the past five years.
Accidents were concentrated mainly at construction sites ordered by the institutions. Last year, 21 deaths (67.7%) occurred at construction ordering sites, 7 (22.6%) at directly managed business sites, and 3 (9.7%) under subcontracting. In particular, deaths at directly managed business sites jumped from 2 in 2023 to 7 in 2024.
By institution, Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water) had the most with 6, followed by Korea Expressway Corporation and Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) with 4 each, and Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) with 3. Over the past five years, cumulative deaths were concentrated at certain large state-owned enterprises: Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) with 33, Korea Expressway Corporation with 30, and Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH) with 29.
Even so, all of these institutions received an "average (grade 3)" safety management grade. In last year's safety management grade review, 71 of 72 institutions received grades 2 to 3, and only Saemangeum Development Corporation (SDCO) was rated "insufficient (grade 4)" or below. Compared with 2020, the first year of the system, when 66.4% were rated average or above, by 2024 effectively all institutions—98.6%—received "average or above."
Institutions with more deaths were no exception. At Korea Land & Housing Corporation (LH), deaths doubled from 2 in 2023 to 4 in 2024, but the grade remained the same, and Korea National Railway also kept grade 3 despite an increase in deaths. An official at the budget office noted, "The structure in which even institutions with many fatal accidents receive average or above is evidence that the system has lost its discriminating power."
Although the safety management grade system is linked to management performance evaluations, its effectiveness was minimal. The weight of the safety management grade is only 0.5 points, offering little pressure on institutions to improve. In addition, the "performance in reducing fatal accidents" indicator is worth only 100 points, allowing other indicators to offset it. In the end, structural limitations emerged in which actual fatal accidents are not properly reflected in evaluations.
Large accidents continued on the ground this year as well. On 4th, at a Korea Expressway Corporation-ordered expressway construction site in February, the collapse of a bridge deck killed four and left six seriously or moderately injured, and in August, two workers at Korea Railroad Corporation (KORAIL) were struck and killed by a train while inspecting damage from heavy rain.
In response, the government belatedly rolled out measures. The Ministry of Economy and Finance said at the Public Institution Steering Committee this month that it would legislate safety management as a basic principle of institutional operation and push to amend the law to allow removal of institution heads when a serious industrial accident occurs. In management evaluations, it plans to raise the score allocation for industrial accident prevention to a record-high 2.5 points and expand safety management grade reviews to all state-owned enterprises and quasi-governmental institutions.
However, since the system itself produces "average or above," critics say simply raising the score allocation will not stop the recurring fatal accidents. Without differentiated evaluations and strong disadvantages for accident-prone institutions, the safety management grade system cannot guarantee on-site safety.
Choi Hyun-seon, a professor of public administration at Myongji University, said, "Raising the score from 0.5 to 2.5 points does not guarantee on-site safety," adding, "Approaching it by deducting a few points when a human life is lost is the wrong way." Choi emphasized, "A structure in which the Ministry of Economy and Finance or management evaluation panels formally just assign scores has no preventive effect at all," and called to "shift to a professional and effective evaluation system led by the Labor Ministry and impose substantial penalties on entire institutions when serious accidents occur."