Hole-in-the-wall e-government…Prime Minister Han Deok-soo “Administrative computer network failure, apologize”.

Prime Minister Han Deok-soo is chairing a meeting on the 18th at the Government Seoul Office related to the disruption of national public services due to a breakdown in the national information system service the day before. Yonhap News

Prime Minister Han Deok-soo expressed regret on the 18th about the breakdown of the government’s administrative computer network. Immediately after the breakdown occurred the day before, he issued an urgent order to “analyze the detailed cause and mobilize all available manpower and equipment to complete the recovery quickly.” He then reissued a directive to “maintain the civil servants’ emergency duty system.”

The Prime Minister held a video conference with related ministries on this day at the Government Seoul Office and asked them to “prevent disadvantages from occurring due to non-issuance of administrative documents through methods such as retroactive system input.” He also asked, “agencies related to tax payment, such as the National Tax Service, Customs Service, and Ministry of Public Administration and Security, to actively consider extending the payment contracts until the system is normalized.” He made it clear that he would take the lead in rapid recovery by stating, “I will go directly to the Daejeon recovery site immediately after this meeting.”

He said, “I apologize for the inconvenience and confusion experienced by many citizens due to the disruption of public services due to the breakdown of the government’s administrative computer network.” He emphasized, “We are currently carrying out a full-scale recovery operation with private experts centered on the Ministry of Public Administration and Security, and we will do our best to normalize it as soon as possible.” He added, “I think this incident clearly showed what kind of inconvenience and confusion can occur if the digital system does not work perfectly.” He continued, “I hope that the related agencies will quickly identify the cause and approach it with a special resolution so that this does not happen again,” and “Please carefully check whether there are any additional measures to be taken regarding the problems of public services due to this computer network breakdown.”

Finally, the Prime Minister said, “Cities, provinces, cities, counties, and districts should continue to operate the manual civil complaint receipt system until the system is normalized, and please maintain the emergency duty system of related civil servants.”

Meanwhile, since the day before, an unprecedented situation occurred where the national administrative computer network had an error, and both online and offline civil services such as issuance of resident registration certificates continued to be disrupted. Situations where civil petitioners couldn’t get the documents needed for lease contracts or housing applications and couldn’t open bank accounts were everywhere. Even though it is the ‘leading country in e-government’ that is leading the world, the administrative authorities are receiving criticism for leaving a big flaw in online administrative services due to their immaturity in not being able to identify system error problems in time.

A notice of delay in civil complaint processing due to computer failure is posted at a community center in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on the 17th, when a failure occurred in the administrative computer network of local self-governing bodies nationwide. Sung Hyung-joo Reporter