{"id":40458,"date":"2026-01-20T11:55:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=40458"},"modified":"2026-01-20T11:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T06:10:36","slug":"north-koreas-kim-sacks-vice-premier-rails-against-incompetence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/north-koreas-kim-sacks-vice-premier-rails-against-incompetence\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea’s Kim sacks vice premier, rails against ‘incompetence’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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SEOUL, Jan 20 (AFP) : North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fired his vice premier and railed against “incompetent” officials in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory, state media said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Vice Premier Yang Sung Ho was sacked “on the spot”, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said, in a speech in which Kim attacked “irresponsible, rude and incompetent leading officials”.<\/p>\n

“Please, Comrade Vice Premier, resign by yourself when you can do it on your own before it is too late,” Kim reportedly said.<\/p>\n

Nuclear-armed North Korea, which is under multiple sets of sanctions over its weapons programmes, has long struggled with its moribund state-managed economy and chronic food shortages.<\/p>\n

Kim has been quick to scold lazy officials for alleged mismanagement of economic policy but such a public dismissal is very rare.<\/p>\n

Touring the opening of an industrial machinery complex on Monday, Kim blasted cadres who for “too long been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility and passiveness”.<\/p>\n

Yang was “unfit to be entrusted with heavy duties”, Kim said, according to KCNA.<\/p>\n

“Put simply, it was like hitching a cart to a goat — an accidental mistake in our cadre appointment process,” the North Korean leader explained.<\/p>\n

“After all, it is an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat.”<\/p>\n

And he urged a quick turnaround in the “centuries-old backwardness of the economy and build a modernized and advanced one capable of firmly guaranteeing the future of our state”.<\/p>\n

Images released by Pyongyang showed a stern-looking Kim delivering a speech at the venue in Hamgyong Province in the country’s frigid northeast, with workers in attendance wearing green uniforms and matching grey hats.<\/p>\n

– Lazy officials –<\/strong><\/p>\n

The impoverished North has long prioritised its military and banned nuclear weapons programmes over providing for its people.<\/p>\n

It is highly vulnerable to natural disasters including flood and drought due to a chronic lack of infrastructure, deforestation and decades of state mismanagement.<\/p>\n

The new machine complex makes up part of a large machinery-manufacturing belt linking the northeast to Wonsan further south, “accounting for about 16 percent of North Korea’s total machinery output”, according to Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies.<\/p>\n

Kim’s public dismissal of Yang mirrors past cases such as Jang Song Thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, Yang said.<\/p>\n

The North Korean leader is “using public accountability as a shock tactic to warn party officials”, he told AFP.<\/p>\n

Pyongyang is gearing up for its first congress of its ruling party in five years, with analysts expecting it in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Economic policy, as well as defence and military planning, are likely to be high on the agenda.<\/p>\n

Last month, Kim vowed to root out “evil” at a major meeting of Pyongyang’s top brass.<\/p>\n

State media did not offer specifics, though it did say the ruling party had revealed numerous recent “deviations” in discipline — a euphemism for corruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SEOUL, Jan 20 (AFP) : North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has fired his vice premier and railed against “incompetent” officials in a rare and very public broadside against apparatchiks at the opening of a critical factory, state media said Tuesday. Vice Premier Yang Sung Ho was sacked “on the spot”, the state-run Korean Central […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40458"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40458"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40458\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40460,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40458\/revisions\/40460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}