YONHAP NEWS

(LEAD) Lee offers public apology for reversal of administrative town plan

By Byun Duk-kun
SEOUL, Nov. 28 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak on Friday apologized for social conflict and confusion caused by his government's decision to call off a plan to move parts of the government out of Seoul to a new administrative town now under construction in central South Korea.

   In a nationally televised town hall meeting that began late Friday, Lee vowed to risk political losses, saying he is convinced a reversal of the Sejong City project will be beneficial to the nation and the people.

   Lee also stressed that he is opposed to the division of government, and that Sejong City -- if built as an administrative town as planned -- will be a disaster.

   "I am somewhat ashamed, and I regret it when I think of it now," the president said in the live television program, referring to his pledge during the 2007 presidential campaign to hold fast to the Sejong administrative town plan.

   "I feel sorry to the nation and the people of Chungcheong Province for causing such confusion, even though revising the plan will benefit them," he said.

   The remarks marked the first official acknowledgment from President Lee of a move to significantly reduce the number of government offices to be relocated to the planned city.

   The minor opposition Liberty Forward Party (LFP), most of whose 17 legislators are based in Chungcheong Province, said immediately after the president's television program that all of its lawmakers have decided to submit their resignations to their party leader.

   "We will reject any attempt to change Sejong City plans, and the president will face public resistance," LFP chief Rep. Lee Hoe-chang said in a press conference. It was not clear whether the party leader planned to actually submit the resignations of party legislators to the parliamentary speaker.

   Rep. Park Geun-hye, one of the most prominent figures in the ruling Grand National Party and in South Korean politics, also renewed her opposition to any changes to the Sejong City plan.

   "I have already said what I need to say, and there is no change to my position," she told reporters.

   The Lee administration recently launched a government-private committee to draw up an alternative plan for Sejong by January through public hearings and other consensus-building procedures.

   Initiated by former President Roh Moo-hyun as an election campaign pledge in 2002, the Sejong City project calls for moving nine ministries and four government agencies to Sejong in South Chungcheong Province, about 160km south of Seoul. There were 18 ministries under Roh's administration, which were merged into 15 by the incumbent Lee government.

   The National Assembly passed a special bill on the construction of Sejong City in 2005, with the then opposition Grand National Party voting for the bill in a "political gesture" so as not to lose support from the neutral Chungcheong region. Sejong was derived from the name of a Joseon Dynasty king who invented the Korean alphabet.

   Since its inauguration in early 2008, however, the Lee administration has been looking to downsize the relocation project, calling a regional division of the government "inefficient."

   The president said he could have avoided the confusion or the blame if he had simply turned a blind eye to the issue, which he said will not affect him or his government, but his successors.

   "But I ask myself if I should let the country suffer just so I can be little more comfortable politically," Lee said.

   "There is no country in the world that divides its capital," he added, noting Germany was the only exception, but that the country's former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has recently acknowledged it was a failure and said South Korea must not make the same mistake.

   Lee said the most serious problem facing Sejong City was that it would significantly undermine the efficiency of the government while doing little or nothing to help develop the region.

   The city was earlier expected to become the home to half a million people.

   The president noted the relocation of a dozen government ministries and agencies will lead to the inflow of their 10,400 officials, but that most of them would still have to spend nearly half of their work days in Seoul for parliamentary sessions or inter-government consultations.

   "Under such circumstances, there will certainly be problems in the administration, but the city itself cannot be self-sufficient without any new jobs or any real income," Lee said.

   The president said the government has yet to finalize its plans, but noted Sejong cannot be of any help to the region or the nation unless enough businesses move into the city to offer jobs and attract people.

   "The government will present its final plans before the end of the year, and it will be a plan to build a self-sufficient city," he said.

   bdk@yna.co.kr
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