The Board of Audit and Inspection found that the Korea Educational Facility Safety Agency fabricated a document to justify an overseas trip by its chairman and submitted it to the National Assembly and other bodies. The audit also confirmed workplace harassment, including repeated demands that an employee on marriage leave file a written explanation.
The board released the findings of its "Audit of the Operations and Management of the Korea Educational Facility Safety Agency" on the 15th. The audit was conducted at the request of the National Assembly in December last year.
According to the findings, the agency asked a travel company to produce a false invitation document in August last year to create grounds for the chairman's trip to Finland and Estonia. At the time, the agency sought to have the chairman join an overseas training program for working-level staff that was part of a project commissioned by the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education, but a routine internal audit found the justification for the trip insufficient.
A staff member identified as A then drafted language stating that the Vantaa education authority in Finland had requested the chairman's attendance, even though that had not been verified. After review by a team leader and a department head, the agency asked the travel company to prepare a document containing that language. Using it as a basis, the agency produced a document indicating that the Vantaa authority had requested the chairman's attendance, submitted it to the Gyeonggi Provincial Office of Education and used it to divert budget funds and justify the trip.
At a parliamentary audit in October last year, the agency also submitted a written answer to the National Assembly that contradicted the fact that the Vantaa authority had merely inquired whether the chairman would attend. The board called for the department head to be suspended and for the team leader and the staff member to face at least light disciplinary action. It concluded, however, that the 12.29 million won ($8,600) in travel expenses paid to the chairman had been disbursed under applicable rules and could not be considered false or excessive spending.
The audit also uncovered workplace harassment. In June last year, after an amendment to the Educational Facilities Act was introduced without a report to the chairman, the agency moved to establish how it had happened. In the process, it asked an employee identified as B, who was on marriage leave, to write and revise a written explanation three times over six days. B wrote the explanation twice while on leave and sent it a total of five times, the audit found.
The board judged that the instructions exceeded the reasonable scope of work because the Ministry of Education had set no deadline for the report and because waiting until after the employee's leave ended would not have significantly hindered operations. It found the conduct amounted to workplace harassment under the Labor Standards Act, noting in particular that B was later diagnosed as needing four weeks of rest due to a risk of miscarriage. The local labor office had earlier reached the same conclusion and imposed a fine on the chairman.
The board also found that the agency's internal reporting and approval system had not functioned properly. The agency decided at an internal meeting in April last year to halt efforts to amend the Educational Facilities Act, but related work continued afterward. The planning and coordination office reported the progress of the amendment effort to the Ministry of Education twice but did not report it to the chairman, who held final approval authority.
As a result, the bill was introduced on June 16 last year without the chairman's knowledge, and he was first briefed three days later, on the 19th.
The board instructed the agency's chairman to comply with reporting and approval procedures for important business and to ensure that workplace harassment does not recur when issuing work instructions to employees.