“A Third of Population Sought ACRC’s Help Last Year” The Commission Released Submission and Handling Results of 17 Million Civil Complaints and Reports

- ACRC listened to the people via communication channels, including e-People, Integrated Government Call Center (110), People’s Idea Box, Clean Portal and Online Administrative Appeals -

(7th Mar. 2022, ACRC)

As the number of civil complaints and public interest reports has steadily risen amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a total of 17 million (equivalent to a third of the population) grievances and reports were filed and closed last year.

On the 7th, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (Chairperson Jeon Hyun-Heui, ACRC) released the result of submission and handling of civil complaints and reports through e-People, Integrated Government Call Center (110), corruption and public interest reporting (Clean Portal), and Government Complaints Counseling Center made last year.

The ACRC oversees the government’s efforts toward the redemption of citizen rights and interests and anti-corruption, and plays various roles of ▲ resolving civil grievances, ▲ developing anti-corruption policy, ▲ handling corruption and public interest reports as well as protecting wistleblowers, ▲ supervising administrative appeals, ▲ improving unreasonable institutions, among others.

The ACRC also has different public communication channels, including e-People, Integrated Government Call Center (110), People’s Idea Box, Clean Portal (for anti-corruption and public interest reporting), Online Administrative Appeals to listen closely to the voice of the people.

17 million cases were filed with the ACRC through e-People, Clean Portal, etc., last year, which is a steep rise of 17 times more than one million in 2011.

By type, 13.3 million civil complaints were submitted through e-People, 3.1 million counseling cases via Integrated Government Call Center (110), 450,000 ideas through the public policy participation channel on People’s Idea Box, 170,000 ideas via citizen and public official suggestion programs, 47,000 counseling cases through Integrated Government Call Center (110), 20,000 petitions via administrative appeals, and 15,000 reports through the corruption and public interest reporting channel.

e-People, in particular, supports the resolution of civil complaints, providing the network for 1,089 central administrative agencies, local governments and public institutions. As seen in the rapid increase of public awareness on the system from 58.9% in 2011 to 84.3% in 2021, it has solidified its position as the nation’s truly representative public communication channel.

The ACRC improved e-People system so that it not only provides functions to submit and handle civil complaints, but also allows citizens to make input through policy discussion and surveys, making it more accessible and convenient for the people.

When looking at the public agency against which 13.3 million civil complaints were filed on e-People, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport received the biggest number of grievances at 2.13 million, including collective complaints regarding apartments, followed by National Police Agency at 1.22 million cases, such as reports on violation of the Road Traffic Act, and Korea Land & Housing Corporation at 420,000 complaints.

With the big data of dozens of millions of civil complaints, the ACRC worked at policy improvement to essentially tackle causes that structurally induce corruption or undermine citizen rights and interests. Our key efforts made last year include a 50% reduction of real estate commissions, improvement of meal service for children from underprivileged families, and improvement of operation and management of electric scooters, tactile paving and green vehicles.

Meanwhile, the number of civil complaints the ACRC itself closed, as if a court of appeals does, after referred from the public agency in charge was around 60,000 in the last year alone, and some 200,000 since the current administration entered office. We are also proactively responding to collective complaints where interests of different stakeholders clash with one another as the number of such cases is rapidly rising lately.

Particularly, the ACRC proactively mediated and arbitrated 479 collective civil complaints, including a request to improve living conditions and welfare of a village in Gyeongju-si where people with Hansen’s disease reside, and a case about the sale of a Korean Air’s site in Songhyeon-dong, that were complex and had been pending for a long time, minimizing social cost and realizing some 140,000 citizens’ long-awaited demands.

In addition, we opened the Government Complaints Counseling Center in October 2019, which provides at-one-go counseling service over civil complaints involving multiple public institutions, and closed some 85,000 cases.

The ACRC has closed some 20,000 cases of administrative appeals last year, and 115,000 cases since the current government came into power, among which it redeemed citizen rights and interests from 12,000 unlawful and unfair dispositions of government agencies.

Last year, the ACRC received and closed a total of some 15,000 reports via Clean Portal (for corruption and public interest reporting), which include reports on false claims of welfare allowance and subsidy, and violation of the Code of Conduct for Public Officials and Improper Solicitation and Graft Act.

We have provided 248 protective measures for whistleblowers who became the victim of disadvantageous measures regarding social position, and 23.2 billion won of monetary reward and award was paid to them. Importantly, the amount of revenue restored or added in the central or local governments thanks to public interest disclosures amount to 1.1165 trillion won.

At the same time, in an effort to create a culture of integrity throughout the public office, we strived for anti-corruption and integrity education. The ACRC has directly provided integrity education for some 80,000 public officials last year, and 190,000 individuals since the current government took office.

ACRC Vice Chairperson Lee Jung-hee said “we will continue to prevent and redeem the violation of citizen rights and interests by bridging between administrative and public institutions on the ground and the people, and do our best to realize a corruption-free and transparent society.”