Haenam-gun Achieves Second Grade for 5 Consecutive Years as the Only Region in Jeonnam with Integrity Rating

Minseon 7th and 8th Terms "Shined as 'Clean Haenam'"

[Haenam＝Asia Economy Honam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Seo Young-seo] Haenam-gun, Jeollanam-do, achieved the second grade for five consecutive years, the only one in Jeollanam-do, in the ‘2022 National Public Institution Integrity Evaluation’ hosted by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission.

According to the county on the 26th, in this evaluation, Haenam-gun was selected as the second grade in comprehensive integrity with a total score of 79.7 points through the integrity perception evaluation (60%), which assesses integrity from both external and internal perspectives, and the integrity effort evaluation (40%), which evaluates the performance of various integrity policies.

Scenic View of Cheongsan, Haenam-gun [Photo by Haenam-gun]

This score is more than 5 points higher compared to the national average for county-level units (74.4 points), and except for some items, most evaluation items received scores above the average. Moreover, for the first time this year, the newly introduced integrity effort category also achieved the second grade, indicating that integrity policies are firmly established in the public service community.

The integrity perception evaluation was conducted through external evaluation targeting civil petitioners who received services from Haenam-gun and internal evaluation asking public officials, resulting in a total score of 78.2 points (national county-level average 77.2 points) across seven items each on corruption perception and corruption experience.

In particular, in the integrity effort category, which evaluates the establishment of anti-corruption systems, awareness enhancement, efforts and leadership of the head of the institution and senior officials, Haenam-gun received a score of 83.7 points, more than 10 points higher than the national county-level average (72.9 points), highlighting the continuous efforts to improve integrity over several years.

This achievement is interpreted as the result of prioritizing the establishment of integrity and trustworthy administration since the launch of the 7th local government, conducting continuous anti-corruption education for all employees including the county governor, operating the county administration based on fairness, equity, and openness, promptly and courteously handling tasks, disclosing business promotion expenses and conducting constant monitoring, and improving systems for creating an institutional culture of integrity such as satisfaction surveys for external civil petitioners.

The county regards the improvement of internal integrity culture as the most urgent task and plans to actively promote measures to enhance internal integrity perception, such as integrity discussion meetings for senior officials, integrity practice declarations, continuous learning and education for all employees, and integrity practice campaigns.

Myeong Hyun-gwan, Haenam County Governor
Photo by Haenam County

County Governor Myeong Hyun-gwan said, “I have always emphasized that integrity is the greatest goal of county administration and the first virtue that public officials should have, and by continuously implementing policies to make it a part of daily life, we have achieved the good result of maintaining the second grade in integrity for five consecutive years. In the 8th local government, we will strive to further improve these achievements and realize the nation’s best integrity administration.”

Meanwhile, the comprehensive integrity evaluation is conducted annually by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission, and this year, evaluations were conducted on 569 institutions including central administration, basic local governments, and public-related organizations.

The evaluation system was changed by integrating the existing integrity measurement and anti-corruption policy evaluation into comprehensive integrity evaluation fields: integrity perception, integrity effort, and institutional corruption status.