Kim winds up cabinet revamp

President Kim Dae-jung appointed nine new vice ministers on Friday, concluding a cabinet reshuffle initiated last Thursday.

He appointed Cho Young-teck vice minister at the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs and Kwon O-kyu as chief of the Public Procurement Service. He also named Lee Seung-koo, chief of the National Science Museum, as vice minister of the Ministry of Science and Technology and Park Mun-seok, assistant minister for religious affairs, as vice minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

Shin Eun-hang, assistant minister for social welfare policy, became vice minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare and Chung Kang-chung, assistant minister of public policy and coordination, was promoted to chief of staff to the prime minister.

The Blue House also named Kim Joo-hyun, secretary to the president for official discipline and evaluation, as the new chief of the Central Officials' Training Institute and Kim Joong-yang, the head of the National Institute of Professional Administration, as the chief of the Personnel Appeals Commission. Kang Sin-yuck, the former chief of the strategy committee at the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was named chief of the Military Manpower Administration.

The Blue House said it changed the vice minister-level to enhance policy efficiency; the promotions, however, were mostly internal; officials moved up in their home bureaucracies.

Park Sun-sook, the President's spokeswoman, said the purpose of the reshuffle was to encourage the bureaucracy by appointing competent people to oversee them, adding that President Kim wants to end his administration on a high note. There was no immediate reaction to the personnel changes from the opposition Grand National Party, which had criticized Mr. Kim's new ministerial appointments last week as falling short of his promise to form a neutral cabinet.

by Chun Young-gi