Transparent Society Award 2014

Transparent Society Award 2014

Transparency International Korea has announced its 14th Transparent Society Award’s seven recipients. The awarding ceremony coincides with the UN’s “anti-corruption day” on December 9, 2014.

The the recipients of this transparency awards are as follow:

Ahn Jong-Hoon (Teacher at Donggu High School)
Korea Energy Management Corporation (PR Department)
‘The Whistleblower’ (Korean movie/film)
Nae-Son Lee (Professor at Kyeongpook National University)
Bu-Seon Kim (Korea Actress)
Kang-Sook Lee (Integrity class teacher at Ansan Transparent Society and Anti-Corruption Convention)
Kwang-Jin Kim (Member of the Parliament)

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1. Jong-Hoon Ahn (school teacher at Donggu High School)

Jong-Hoon Ahn, not worrying about the disadvantages it will cost his position, persevered in reporting his school’s internal corruption which he filed through through a governmental online system (www.epeople.go.kr). This prompted Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education to make the internal corruption into a civil case and conducted a special investigation of the school and its corporate body.

As a result, the investigation has confirmed that the school’s chief of administration department committed 16 irregularities and the chairperson of the corporate’s board committed 6 irregularities among other forms of corrupt acts.

Due to the exposure of such irregularities, the chief of administrative department’s application for retirement was rejected and the promotion of the chairman of the board was cancelled. Through this selfless act, Jong-Hoon Ahn lost his job.

2. Korea Energy Management Corporation PR Department

The Energy Management Corporation PR Department started creating parodies out of the popular movies, such as the popular movie “Snowpiercer” (2013), called an “Integrity Train” and of the movie “Tazza” (2014) called “Cheongjja” (淸 者: a man dreaming for integrity), which are then being used as anti-corruption integrity education materials. The department’s staff members produced the parodies themselves and uploaded them to Youtube, Facebook and other SNS for the viewers to learn more about transparency.

The “Integrity Train” parody got around 130 thousand views and “Cheongjja” parody received various media attention. This entails that there is so much need for anti-corruption and integrity culture that can be strengthened through a ripple effect method.

In addition, in order to spread a culture of integrity in the Corporation, an “Integrity Day” (every first Tuesday of the month) was set. During working hours, integrity related transmissions (recorded by Kyong-Young Ja – the Assistant Chairperson) is broadcasted for the workers to hear about anti-corruption and integrity awareness. The purpose is to continually remind the members regarding those values and for organizational corruption prevention and contribute to the formation of culture of integrity.

Moreover, Korea Energy Management Corporation set every month of November to give awards to deserving person of merit with “Energy Conservation Award” with support from the government. The selection process has been reformed through an award system called “transparent and open award”. This system’s judgment procedure emphasizes fairness wherein applicants from all walks of life can easily apply through a standardized form of application paper.

3. “The Whistleblower” (Korean Movie)

Movie ‘whistleblower’ is a film released on October 2, 2014 by Watermelon Company. It was directed by Im Soon Rae. The “Whistleblower” is about the scandal related to the scientific research by Dr. Hwang Woo-Seok in 2005.

The film is fundamentally a question about the truth, and indeed the truth is a non-trivial issue that is difficult for the country to take. Looking at the movie through the society’s viewpoint, the film centers in the belief that “the truth must prevail” and “lies must not obscure the truth”.

The film is not about revealing and prosecuting some criminals of the past, but most of all it is a strong force that can encourage the would-be whistleblowers to act with courage and conscience in the here and now.

In addition, it can awaken the society to recognize and applaud at those deeds. Above all, whistleblowers can establish a society that can make sound judgments about social justice and truth.

4. Professor Nae-Son Lee (Kyongbuk National University)

Nae-Son Lee is a professor at Kyongbuk University’s Arts and Music Department. In 2012, Professor Lee suspected that his fellow professor, who was the chairperson of evaluation/screening department for recruitment, was involved in fixing during the open recruitment process. Professor Lee then reported this unfair practice through a governmental agency’s online complaint service (www.epeople.go.kr by ACRC). The case was then reported by the media which has led to the investigations of the said national university.

When the university established a fact-finding committee to investigate the case, instead of resolving the alleged violation, they included in their investigation a disciplinary action to the person who leaked the violation outside.

Professor Lee believed that the basic principles and order should be practiced at schools. Since he has reported complaints online 4 times already, he is under investigation by the Ministry of Education nowadays.

5. Bu-seon Kim (Korean Actress)

Bu-Seon Kim is the one who bravely reported the issues in public housing facilities. She reported the problems of housing heating system and management payments issues to the municipal authorities.

Bu-Seon Kim exposed Korea’s apartment complex issues piling up which are related to corruption among civilian tenants and public officials. Although many people know about this corruption problem but only Bu-Seon was brave enough to report the problem, especially fixing the rents between tenants and housing officials. In particular, the problem involved some officials of the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime.

6. Kang-Sook Lee (Integrity Teacher/Lecturer at Ansan Anti-Corruption and Transparent Society Convention)

Kang-Sook Lee is a member of Ansan Transparent Society and Anti-Corruption Convention. She has been involved in promoting integrity for the Convention’s 63 MoU co-signatories and the area’s elementary, middle school and high schools through integrity education lectures and classes.

She started preparing her lecture materials from scratch and without any experience in giving lectures in public. However, she has learned how to improve her skills using integrity materials through PPT in the past seven for many hours a week. Without doubt, she is a great teacher of integrity who overcame various difficulties and offered so much to the people and society she has taught with. She is also actively and directly involved in integrity and anti-corruption meetings, preparation of integrity materials (manuals), among other activities.

7. Kwang-Jin Kim (Member of the Parliament)

Gwang-Jin Kim was a researcher at People’s Issues/Problems Research Center and at Korean KYC (Korea Youth Corps) before he won a set as parliamentarian in April 2012. He was also working for YMCA and has done a lot of work for civil rights movements in South Korea.

As a parliamentarian, he became chair of Integrated Democratic Party and was a member of the parliament’s defense committee, a committee that most parliamentarians do not want to be in. As a member of the committee, he was able to help strengthen the management and control for defense budget, which takes up 10% of the overall national budget.

He is also very active and strongly advocated the promotion of human rights and youth development programs.

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