Kim condemns ‘incompetent’ celebration members for delays in authorities tasks prematurely of key ruling celebration assembly.
Printed On 20 Jan 2026
North Korean chief Kim Jong Un has fired a senior official tasked with financial coverage and condemned “incompetent” celebration members, based on state media, in a uncommon public rebuke of officers within the secretive state.
The state-run Korean Central Information Company (KCNA) reported on Tuesday that Kim had dismissed Vice Premier Yang Sung-ho through the inauguration ceremony of the primary stage of a modernisation mission on the Ryongsong Machine Advanced.
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The North Korean chief fired Yang “on the spot”, KCNA stated, including that Kim thought-about the vice premier as “unfit to be entrusted with heavy duties”.
“Put merely, it was like hitching a cart to a goat – an unintentional mistake in our cadre appointment course of,” Kim was quoted within the information report as saying. “In spite of everything, it’s an ox that pulls a cart, not a goat,” he added.
Yang, a former equipment business minister promoted to vice premier accountable for the equipment sector, can be an alternate member of the celebration’s management council, based on South Korea’s state information company Yonhap.
Yang’s substitute has not been introduced.
The elimination comes as North Korea’s ruling Employees’ Occasion gears up for its Ninth Occasion Congress, which is predicted to convene quickly to set out main coverage objectives for the nation.
Throughout the go to to the economic equipment complicated on Monday, Kim additionally blasted officers whom he blamed for delays within the modernisation mission.

“Owing to the irresponsible, impolite and incompetent financial steering officers, the first-stage modernisation mission of the Ryongsong Machine Advanced encountered difficulties,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.
He additionally slammed celebration members who, for “too lengthy”, had “been accustomed to defeatism, irresponsibility and passiveness”.
Kim warned that present financial policymakers might “hardly information the work of readjusting the nation’s business as a complete and upgrading it technologically”.
The general public admonition of officers, which Yonhap described as “uncommon”, appeared aimed toward tightening self-discipline amongst officers prematurely of the Occasion Congress.
Final week, Yonhap reported that North Korea had changed its prime navy officers accountable for guarding Kim, amid what it known as “assassination considerations”.
In accordance with the report, the chiefs of three main North Korean models, the Guard Workplace of the ruling celebration, the Guard Division of the State Affairs Fee and the Bodyguard Command, have been all changed.
Whereas uncommon, the general public dismissals mirror previous instances, akin to Jang Track Thaek, Kim’s uncle, who was executed in 2013 after being accused of plotting to overthrow his nephew, based on Yang Moo-jin of the College of North Korean Research.
The North Korean chief is “utilizing public accountability as a shock tactic to warn celebration officers”, Yang instructed the AFP information company.
