19 November 1998

Kiyoshi SASAMORI
General Secretary
Japanese Trade Union Confederation (JTUC-RENGO)

1. On November 19, the Committee for the Promotion of Decentralization (Chairman Ken Moroi) submitted its fifth recommendation report to Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. The latest recommendation was in response to the request for advice by former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, who asked the committee to make a further deliberation on the transfer of administrative authority from the national and prefectural governments to the governments of cities, towns and villages.
   The committee's report covers a) a review of how public works projects should be undertaken (projects under direct control of the national government and subsidized projects); b) a review of non-public works; and c) a review of a variety of development and improvement projects designed or participated by the state government.
   
   
2. The fifth recommendation was originally scheduled for the release in late October. It was expected to spell out proposals for a drastic cutback on projects under direct state control and the transfer of administrative powers over such projects to local governments, which would lead to the slimming down of central government ministries and agencies. RENGO appreciates the "direction" of reforms suggested by the committee's recommendation as a result of the review of the above-mentioned three matters, but believes that the report as a whole is short on specifics and therefore is extremely insufficient as a policy recommendation. The relevant government ministries and agencies as well as politicians representing narrow vested interests should be held responsible for hindering the committee's work from beginning to end and keeping it from coming up with a much better report. The committee for its part should publicize the circumstances that led to the fifth recommendation and offer a long-term vision for reform.
   
   
3. The committee should be given credit for some points contained in the latest recommendation report: a) in its review of public works, the report clarified the need for a further cutback and review of public works projects in a manner that would lead to a further slimming down of central government ministries and agencies; b) the report called for the creation of "unified subsidies" for subsidized public works projects and arrangements to let municipal governments undertake these projects at their own discretion under the principle that the state does not specify where these projects should be undertaken; c) and the report also recommended the abolition, in principle, of subsidization of projects covering roads under the management of cities, towns and villages as well as Class II rivers.
   However, on the designation of projects under direct control of the national government, (such as national highways and Class I rivers,) the recommendation report failed to go any further than calling for a study that would clarify the objective criteria for such designation as much as possible. The committee should have made it a principle to limit the scope of projects to be put under direct state control to measures and projects that have to be undertaken on a national scale and from the national perspective. And it should have specified concrete measures to reduce state projects, and should also have called for the writing of law on the objective criteria in order to preclude arbitrary judgments by the national government. Discussions on specific ways to reduce state projects will now shift to relevant advisory councils (such as the Road Council). We expect the Committee for the Promotion of Decentralization will continue its activities toward the transfer of authority over projects under direct state control to municipal governments.
   Regarding the review of non-public works projects and a variety of development and improvement projects, the committee's recommendation report is no more than a text of abstract arguments, which we must say is quite inadequate.
   
   
4. The Committee for the Promotion of Decentralization has a big role to play toward the decentralization goal of community building with the participation of local residents. We hope that the committee will keep up its vigorous work and write its sixth recommendation report promptly in order to achieve the objective of the accelerated transfer of administrative authority and funding resources from the central government to municipal governments.
   The decentralization will now shift gear into the stage of implementation.
   RENGO will continue to address decentralization and other administrative reform issues to realize policy objectives pioneered by the Committee for the Promotion of Decentralization, such as the abolition of state business commissioned to local governments by law and the scaling down of state involvement in municipal affairs.