Gov't begins 2nd round of review, seeks more cost cuts by JICA+

TOKYO, April 23 Kyodo -
A government office tasked with cutting wasteful spending on Friday urged the
Japan International Cooperation Agency to cut more costs as it began the second
round of public discussions with bureaucrats to review the necessity and
efficiency of state-funded programs.
In the four-day round, the Government Revitalization Unit is targeting 151
programs of 47 independent administrative institutions -- government-affiliated
entities often criticized for providing cushy post-retirement jobs to senior
bureaucrats.
Hopes are growing within the seven-month-old government of Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama that the publicity generated by the discussions will boost its
flagging popularity ahead of the House of Councillors election this summer.
''I hope (the office) will do a major cleaning by completely rinsing off old
skin, including the long-standing (practice of) amakudari,'' Hatoyama said
Friday morning, referring to the unpopular employment practice for retired
national civil servants.
''I'm pinning great hopes on it,'' he told reporters.
The government office, chaired by Hatoyama but effectively led by government
revitalization minister Yukio Edano, aims to compile a set of reforms for
targeted institutions in several months, possibly in June, after scrutinizing
their programs and finances, which critics say are often shrouded in secrecy.
At the outset of the discussions on Friday, Edano said making administrative
services transparent and stopping the waste of taxpayers' money is ''the only
way to restore public confidence'' in the government.
In the discussions held at an office building in Tokyo's Chuo Ward, ruling
coalition lawmakers and private-sector experts are to review 151 programs
giving them designations such as ''to be continued,'' ''to be transferred'' and
''to be abolished.''
As the participants reviewed 28 programs at JICA, the Japan Housing Finance
Agency and seven other institutions on Friday, they found that state-funded
operating expenses at the overseas development aid agency need to be reviewed
further. They called for additional cuts in expenses for studies and research,
and personnel costs.
While the reviewers called for a tougher screening of yen-denominated loans to
prevent developing countries from being saddled with huge debt obligations,
they determined that the scale of JICA's operations, which totaled 891 billion
yen in the budget for the current fiscal year, should be maintained given the
importance of Japan's official development assistance.
The participants also called on JICA to scale back its business with related
public interest corporations and private-sector firms that have close ties with
it on the grounds such business lacks transparency.
State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Tetsuro Fukuyama, who briefed the reviewers
at the session as a senior official of the ministry with jurisdiction over the
aid agency, alluded to the disposal of agency facilities and their integration
to reduce costs.
In the first round of discussions last November, the unit reviewed the
necessity of programs for which appropriations had been requested for fiscal
2010 by ministries. Because of its novelty, it drew considerable attention from
the public and the media.
In addition to being open to the general public, the discussions are streamed
live on the Internet (http://www.shiwake.go.jp/shiwake.html).
Reviewers are expected to take up programs concerning research and development
on Monday, the second day of the second round's first half through Wednesday.
The Government Revitalization Unit plans to hold the latter half of the round
in late May, targeting public interest corporations, according to government
officials.
Independent administrative institutions were created through the reorganization
of central government offices in 2001 to implement programs considered not
suitable for the state to engage in directly.
Critics say, however, that many of them are run inefficiently with state
subsidies and have provided post-retirement jobs to senior national civil
servants whose government offices have jurisdiction over their operations.
==Kyodo
2010-04-23 23:42:00


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