The Democratic Party of Korea hinted at overhauling governance to prevent recurring corruption at NongHyup.
Lim Mi-ae of the Democratic Party of Korea, a member of the Agriculture. Food. Rural Affairs. Oceans. and Fisheries Committee, held a forum titled "Desirable direction and tasks for NongHyup reform" at the National Assembly Members' Office Building on the 4th.
Experts at the forum proposed improving the governance of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation to resolve corruption issues at NongHyup. Park Jin-do, an emeritus professor at Chungnam National University, said, "When the head of the federation causes a scandal, the media clamors, the Agriculture Ministry launches an audit and announces measures, and when the president says a word, the National Assembly amends the NongHyup Act and that's the end," adding, "The NongHyup Act has been revised 15 times, but there has been no fundamental change."
Park presented the personnel spin-off of the federation as a core task of NongHyup reform. A personnel spin-off of the federation means separating the business organizations and personnel—such as finance and the economy—that the federation has carried out into a separate organization, and reorganizing the federation to focus only on its role as a union of member cooperatives.
He said, "Until now, we have discussed only issues such as term limits for cooperative heads or the method of electing the federation head, but that is not an essential reform. Unless the structure of the federation itself is changed, reform will go nowhere," adding, "The federation should become an organization that leads the cooperative movement as a union of member cooperatives, not a business organization."
Park also noted that responsibility for the failure to properly push forward NongHyup reform lies with the federation, the government and the National Assembly. He said, "There have been about three rounds of discussions on reforming the federation so far, but all have failed," adding, "The federation opposed it, the Agriculture Ministry followed the federation's position, and lawmakers did not take responsibility—this pattern was repeated."
Son Byung-cheol, the head of Gosan NongHyup, who participated as a discussant, said, "At present, there is an attempt to elect only standardized cooperative heads, and there is no system to elect 'competent cooperative heads,'" adding, "With the current system in which the federation head or directors elect audit Commissioners, it is difficult for the audit function to work properly. A system to oversee the audit committee should be established so that matters such as the selection of members are operated independently."
Kim Gi-tae, head of the Korea Cooperative Research Institute, said, "Currently, five federations—NongHyup, the National Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives, credit unions, the Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives (KFCC) and the National Forestry Cooperatives Federation—are each under different ministries, so standards vary," adding, "We need to establish a neutral-zone cooperative Board of Audit and Inspection to strengthen the audit function."
The Democratic Party plans to work with the government to consider the NongHyup reform measures raised at the forum. Moon Geum-ju of the Democratic Party said, "There have been many calls for NongHyup reform and numerous criticisms for improvement, but the same problems have continued. As an important opportunity has been created this year, I hope to prepare groundbreaking NongHyup reform measures together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs."