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| Kim Kyung-Ran |
“Restructuring” was the buzzword that defined Korean society and economy in the wake of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. It has returned with similar vigour. This time, the origin is the shipbuilding industry.
The shipbuilding industry has been the star of the Korean economy until now, providing massive exports and employment. At the end of 2014, there were 16 shipbuilding companies in total, with another 5 800 or so businesses of varying sizes tied up in the same industrial ecosystem. Since 2000, the Korean shipbuilding industry has been growing at an astonishing pace, focusing on high-end vessels, taking advantage of cheap and flexible subcontract labour, expanding the non-shipbuilding areas of its business including the development of offshore plants, and increasing offshore production.
The global financial crisis of 2008, however, has hit the industry hard, while the plummeting oil price since 2014 has radically contracted the demand for offshore oil plants. The offshore plant businesses of all the Big Three shipbuilding companies[1] began to produce deficits in 2014 and operating losses over the last three years. The Korean government, which waited for the market to naturally solve the problem, belatedly organised the Industrial and Corporate Restructuring Council, led by the FSS (the Financial Supervisory Service) and other government departments, in October last year. The Council announced the three principles of restructuring[2] in April this year, and began to exert mounting pressure on individual shipbuilding companies through banks. The three principles provide a guise of consistency, but can be reduced to making cuts to facilities and the number of employees.
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Rahul
Tiwrekar |
This column uses a rights-based framework to analyse the assessment of social safety-net schemes meant for poverty alleviation. One of the most prominent initiatives taken by the Indian state is to provide a guarantee of employment to its rural citizens under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA). Today this is the world’s largest public works scheme. To bring about transparency and accountability in the implementation of this scheme, a social audit was made at regular intervals. This column analyses this social audit tool.
In 1972 the Maharashtra state government initiated an employment guarantee scheme. After 35 years, the government of India adopted it nationally for all rural districts of the country. Many efforts were made to reduce embezzlement of funds and implement this public works scheme effectively. However, there were still complaints about fake attendance, bogus works and low wages. Against this backdrop, the National Advisory Council (NAC)[1], comprised of activists, proposed to include a social audit in the NREGA. Under section 17 of the NREGA, every village council (Gram Panchayat) should conduct a social audit of work undertaken in its jurisdiction every 6 months. Beneficiaries of the government welfare scheme publically record their observation about the benefit they are receiving, and also issues related to its implementation.
