There has come yet another report showing that corruption in the Korean civil service is as pervasive as ever.

The report, compiled by the Justice Ministry and the National Tax Service, showed that there were a total of 2,256 bribery cases involving government employees last year, a 26 percent increase from 1,782 cases in 2013. This year, there were already 1,729 cases by the end of July.

Perhaps you don’t need any such statistics to see how rampant corruption is among the nation’s civil servants and elected officials. Hardly a day passes without news of crooked officials -- be they generals implicated in corrupt defense acquisition programs or lawmakers being jailed for pocketing bribes and abusing their power.

There are many causes for this grim situation, with one of the most outstanding of them being that disciplinary actions being taken against corrupt officials tend to be light. 

In this regard, the Ministry of Personnel Management is taking appropriate steps to strengthen punishments for government employees involved in corruption.

First targeted by the ministry are officials who receive improper entertainment and hospitality in connection with their duties, like free drinks, rounds of golf, use of free or discounted accommodation and invitations to cultural events.

The ministry said those who take these benefits will have to pay hefty penalties -- five times the value of what they were treated to. Given the fact that such practices are rampant in the civil service, the new regulation will certainly work to rein in unethical officials.

The more powerful deterrent will come from the ministry’s decision to set a concrete rule on punishing civil servants who take bribes: Government employees who receive 1 million won in cash or free entertainment and gifts will face dismissal.

Those who solicit and extort bribes will face the same fate even if the value of the kickbacks is below 1 million won.

This is similar to the pertinent clauses of the Kim Young-ran Act, which calls for, among other things, criminal punishment of public officials who receive 1 million won worth of cash, gifts or entertainment on a single occasion and 3 million won per year from the same person. The penalty is regardless of the relationship between such an offer and officials’ duties or reciprocal favors.

But the Kim Young-ran Act -- whose official name is the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act -- will not go into effect until next September, and even this schedule is uncertain because of controversies over some of its key elements.

It is against this backdrop that the ministry did well to set a concrete guideline for disciplining those who take bribes. Civil servants who are dismissed for bribery cannot seek a job in the government for three to five years and have their pension payment cut by a quarter to half. This alone should help those who are tempted to take bribes to think twice.