The ruling party and government are accelerating high-intensity reform efforts to root out corruption within NongHyup, South Korea's largest agricultural cooperative. The core measures focus on establishing an independent external audit body and overhauling the central union chairman election system to enhance transparency across the organization.
The Democratic Party of Korea and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs held a policy consultation meeting at the National Assembly on May 11 to discuss the "NongHyup Reform Plan." The measures were developed based on findings from a special audit by the agriculture ministry and a joint government inspection, aimed at addressing structural problems including weak internal controls, opaque personnel and management practices, and vote-buying in elections.
The ruling party and government agreed to establish the "NongHyup Audit Committee" (tentative name), an independent integrated audit body covering all NongHyup entities. The committee will be set up as a special corporation separate from the central union, with integrated audit functions spanning the holding company, subsidiaries, and regional cooperatives. It will consist of seven members including a chairman. The president will appoint the chairman upon nomination by the agriculture minister, while the minister will appoint the remaining members based on recommendations from expert organizations.
Internal control mechanisms will also be strengthened. The ruling party and government will mandate that NongHyup's compliance officers be appointed from external experts and establish grounds for suspending employees convicted of crimes such as bribery or embezzlement. The agriculture ministry's supervisory authority will be expanded from the central union and regional cooperatives to include the holding company and subsidiaries.
Institutional improvements to enhance operational transparency will proceed in parallel. The parties agreed to codify principles preventing the central union chairman from exerting undue influence over holding company or subsidiary management and to prohibit holding concurrent positions such as chairman of Nongmin Newspaper.
The central union chairman election system will also be reformed. Since the current indirect election structure—where only cooperative heads (approximately 1,100) participate—has been identified as a cause of vote-buying, expanding member participation is under review. Options on the table include direct elections with all members (approximately 2.04 million) participating or forming an electoral college through random selection.
Rep. Yoon Jun-byeong, the Democratic Party's chief secretary on the National Assembly's Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs, Oceans and Fisheries Committee, said, "We will immediately introduce bills related to internal controls and operational transparency, and after further discussion, we will introduce the central union chairman election reform bill next week to complete legislation before the local elections."