The Seven Habits of Highly Endangered Public Interest Corporations

Last year's Government Revitalization Unit review process for government-supported programs was wildly and widely popular. Most of the public enjoyed in a quite visceral way the sight of members of the bureaucracy undergoing a thorough grilling, with the suffering being inflicted being minor in comparison to the arrogance of the administrators and the venal pointless of many of the programs.

Support for the GRU process was not unqualified, however. While some of the quibbles persons had with the process were just that, quibbles, some of the points raised in opposition were significant. A particularly apt criticism of the process was its capriciousness: nowhere was it spelled out what the GRU's commissioners were looking for in terms of red flags or red lines. Administrators of public programs and state aid recipients flailed about under the camera lights, trying to determine in the few moments they had before the commissioners what they needed to say in order to earn the commissioners' mercy.

Last Friday, State Minister for Economic Revitalization Edano Yukio [he has asked reporters to forego calling him "Mr. Minister" ("daijin") in favor of the simple "Edano-san" they had been using before his post was upgraded] took some big steps in the direction of transparency. The GRU would be using seven guidelines to identify public-interest corporations (kōeki hōjin) worthy of examination in the next round of reviews scheduled for this April. That the number of koeki hojin is astonishingly large (24,648, according to The Japan Times) probably played no small part in the decision to publish some rules of engagement in the battle of The Government (big T, big G) vs. government (little g).

The seven habits of highly endangered public interest corporations are:

1) receiving more than 10 million yen a year total from either the government or independent administrative agencies (dokuritsu gyōsei hōjin) in 2007

2) being founded on a mandate established by statute

3) receiving more than 50% of revenues from public-supplied funds

4) controlling over 1 billion yen in assets

5) receiving funding from local governments

6) accepting public-supplied funds to pay for outsourced functions

7) serving as a source of amakudari (post-retirement sinecures) for ex-bureaucrats.

The final standard brings up "the assen problem" of whether or not a sinecure that has not been directly arranged for "through the good offices of the Ministry" (fushōchō ni yoru assen) is eligible for examination. Edano has said that there will be no attempt to make a determination the extent of the involvement of ministries or agencies of the koeki hojin's hiring of former bureaucrats. All koeki hojin with former bureaucrats on staff should consider themselves suspect.

The Hatoyamas Have Things Made Up

A distinguished professor of Japanese Studies emailed me a while ago asking me about one bit of Prime Minister Hatoyama's policy speech which he found incomprehensible, rather than just reprehensible.

"Urakudari (裏下り）?" the good professor wondered, "I am unfamiliar with this term." He asked me whether I had come across it.

I confessed that I had not. A cursory search of the Internet turned up no definitions.

The good professor was flabbergasted. Surely the PM would not use a made-up word in his official policy address to the Diet?

Well, I have some good news and bad news.

The bad news is that, yes, there was no such term as urakudari.

The good news is that everything has been all cleared up. Based on an inquiry from Yamauchi Koichi of the Everyone's Party -- who like the professor wanted to know what the heck he is supposed to think urakudari means -- the Cabinet passed an official proclamation (kakugi kettei) on Friday determining that henceforth urakudari means "reemployment that cannot be confirmed to be amakudari conducted via the good offices of government ministries and agencies but that nevertheless cannot help but raise suspicions that it is amakudari conducted as a matter of routine through these good offices."(「府省庁によるあっせんは確認されていないが、事実上の天下りあっせん慣行と疑念を抱かせる再就職」).

So there.

Oh Hatoyama-san. Isn't it great to have a Cabinet that can retroactively define the words you make up?

Too bad the Cabinet does not have a similar power to retroactively erase Yosano Kaoru's astonishing line of questioning in the Diet on Friday, when he used a story he heard from your gnat-brained brother to accuse you of being not just "the king of tax evaders" but also guilty of lying to the Diet and the populace about your knowledge of your mother's donations to your political funding organization? He also called you a yakuza for having your underlings take the fall for crimes you pushed them to commit -- but that was more a theatrical flourish than a crippling accusation.

Wow, talk about a blindsiding by a member of the Diet who until Friday was known for his geniality, perspicacity and tact...and betrayal by another stupid man (for it is a stupid man indeed who places party above family) whom until Friday could smilingly call you aniki.

All that is destroyed now. No Cabinet proclamation can repair the damage that has been done.

One More For The Road

While the global financial system is going to hell*, I am still obsessing about the governments's gasoline levy bill in support of road construction, a piece of legislation which, according to today's Sankei Shimbun, the ruling coalition finally admits is unsalvageable.

Still, I cannot let a day go by without a dip into the bottomless cesspit of the offspring of the old Construction and National Land ministries.

The front page of Sunday's Mainichi Shimbun featured the results of an investigation into 50 corporations affiliated with the Ministry of National Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism. The 50 corporations had 7288 employees and 1063 members of the board of directors, a pretty rich 7:1 employees-to-directors ratio.

However, looking more closely, the median was a lot richer. Indeed in 16 of the 50 corporations, the number of members of the board of directors outnumbered the number of employees. The most absurd skewing was found in the National Land Policy Research Council (Kokudo Seisaku Kenkyūkai), an organization boasting 16 directors and 1 employee. Other magnificent organizations included the Tour De Hokkaidō Association (Tsūru do Hokkaido Kyōkai) with 17 directors and 6 employees; the Road Development Promotion Center (Dōro Kaihatsu Shinkō Sentā) with 21 directors and 8 employees; and the Hokkaidō Auto Resort Network Association (oh, I give up) with 24 directors and 6 employees.

Did anyone say anything about amakudari positions? A check of the 16 directors of the National Land Policy Research Council found that 9 were retired bureaucrats. Ouch.

Here is the original article.

Of course we also have today's report that the DPJ is asking questions about the 2.3 billion yen paid out over the last five years though the MLITT's "special road equipment account book" (道路整備特別会計) for taxi tickets for ministry employees traveling to and from the Ministry's eight regional equipment centers.

As much as the revision of the Constitution, as much as a reinterpretation of the ban on participation in collective self-defense, the attempt to wrestle down the road construction beast is a struggle over the identity of Japan. If the road lobby can be killed or restrained, much of what has been "Japan" and the "Japanese way of doing things" will cease to exist. Certainties will crumble...and many things considered "difficult" will suddenly become "possible."

Every little of light shone upon the monster weakens it. Every pinprick is making it bleed a little more, slowing it down.

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* The void is filled by a depressed and angry Nihon Cassandra posting up a philippic from London.