[Letters] Electricity is a national security issue

The unprecedented blackout has brought about chaos to the country. The latest blackout paralyzed the guard posts at the border and military radars.

The electricity management is directly linked to national security. It is never too much to stress the importance of power supply and trade. Electricity is a security resource. It is something the government must directly manage. The government must directly oversee the power transmission, distribution and transformation.

The government must directly be in charge of some of the tasks currently controlled by the Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco). Although it is a nonprofit corporation, it is inappropriate for the government to allow the Korea Power Exchange to entirely control the electricity trade. The government may say that the Ministry of Knowledge Economy can oversee it, but that is a lame excuse.

Controlling the electricity supply and demand is an important job, and it is imperative to seek cooperation of other government offices and media when an emergency takes place. For a state-run corporation, its capacity is incapable of carrying out such a mission.

If the power supply was controlled as a matter of national security and disaster prevention, there probably was not such a lame manual that the government does not have to warn the public about the power cut. If the oversight policy was tighter, the Korea Power Exchange would have not responded with the unprecedented power cut because of the failed assessment in the electricity demand. Because of the latest blackout, our weak spot in the national defense was also revealed. We must come up with a stern countermeasure by treating the issue as a national security matter.

Jeong Seong-jae,
president of the Human Rights Welfare Institute of Korea