Calls growing for FSS governor to not seek second term
Calls are growing for Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) Governor Yoon Suk-heun to step down and not seek another three-year term.
Yoon took office in May 2018, and the union at the FSS — which opposed him then — union is expressing strong opposition to any extension of his term, urging him to take responsibility for the regulator’s involvement in several recent controversies. Last year, the FSS came under fire for poor supervision of a nationwide fund mis-selling fiasco.
The union has also been stepping up criticism of Yoon for what it calls “immoral personnel management” after the regulator promoted certain officials who had been punished for unfair hiring practices.
It promoted two officials this year who were punished for giving preferential treatment to family members of ranking political and financial figures.
The officials were promoted to a deputy director and a team leader, respectively, even after receiving punishment for corrupt behavior. The deputy director was given a reprimand for offering preferential treatment in the hiring of the son of a lawmaker in 2014. The team leader also helped the son of a former vice president of the Export-Import Bank of Korea unfairly join the FSS in 2016.
Yoon pledged to take harsh measures against those who caused such social controversy, but this was far from the truth, the union said.
“Yoon has exhausted the lives of employees for the past three years since taking office, and did not show any sense of responsibility during the recent personnel appointments,” the union said in a statement. “We want the government to choose a bureaucrat as the new leader of the FSS.”
“If the leader has sole discretion for personnel appointments then Yoon will end up taking responsibility for recent decisions,” the union said.
Yoon is a former economist with expertise in finance. He had been a professor at Soongsil University and Seoul National University before being appointed to lead the FSS.
The union also took issue with Yoon’s conflict with the Financial Services Commission (FSC), calling the power struggle the root cause of the FSS’ annual budget decline.
“Yoon has taught us that a professor cannot be an alternative to a bureaucrat for the leadership of the organization,” it argued.