South Korea’s National Police Agency Commissioner, Kim Chang-yong (pictured) has offered to resign just days after President Yoon Suk-yeol strongly chastised police over recent personnel reshuffle flip-flopping.
Police released the names of new Senior Superintendents General a week earlier, only to reverse seven of the selections two hours later.
Mr Yoon rebuked police, calling the flip-flopping a “serious disturbance of national discipline”, and that “the person authorised to make personnel decisions is the President”.
A Senior Superintendent General is the third-highest rank in the South Korean police.
Mr Yoon said he looked into the matter after reading the news about the overturned appointments and found out “something absurd” had occurred.
“They had gone ahead and appointed the people that the police on its own had recommended to the Interior Ministry,” the President said.
“The fact that a reshuffle that had not yet been approved by the President, or reviewed by the Interior Ministry and proposed to the President, had been reported in the press as if the appointments had been reversed,” he said.
“It is a very grave disturbance of national discipline, or an absurd mistake by a Public Servant that is unacceptable.”
Mr Yoon said no decision had been overturned and that he had given his approval to the version brought to him by the Interior Ministry.
General Kim’s resignation offer came in the midst of police protests over the Interior Ministry’s plan to establish a ‘Police Bureau’, seen as an attempt to increase its control of the law enforcement Agency.
Seoul, 27 June 2022
