Corruption in the House On January 4th, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda formally apologized for the pensions fiasco, going as far as to say the government “has not been on the side of the people.” My initial reaction to this frank mea culpa was along the lines of “no duh”, but a little less respectful.

In February of 2007 it was discovered that approximately 50,000,000 unaccounted-for pension accounts were revealed. Of those, and astonishing 1,343 have since been matched with their owners. Good job, guys. Now how about the other 49,998,657 people? It might sound harsh, but for the government’s sake, I hope most of those account holders are long dead or senile.

I seriously don’t think that I’ll get adequate social security benefits here in Japan come retirement time, not least because of the disgraceful mismanagement that has been slowly revealed over the last three years. Even if I pay into the system for the next 32 years, the most I could expect is a monthly “apology check*” worth less than 10% of my last take-home pay.

* Apology Check - The government loses a person’s pension information, apologizes, and bases the future entitlement on the last pay check.

You’d think that a system that goes by name would have little trouble with my rather foreign designation, but this is hardly the case.

A Pathetic Comedy of Errors

The Social Insurance Agency has failed to accurately keep pension records over a period of more than 40 years. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry concealed the fact that people contracted Hepatitis C from fibrinogen for a long time, with officials showing the same concern as they have for the cost of sushi at convenience stores. The Construction and Transport Ministry totally failed to detect that construction firms had faked earthquake resistance data, while the ever vigilant Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry failed to notice mislabeled food products. Just to add more insult to injury, we’ve also just been informed that employees in teh Construction and Transport Ministry spent taxpayers money from the Provisional Gas Tax on recreational activities and housing for officials.

Upon hearing the news, DPJ Diet Affairs Committee Chairman Kenji Yamaoka said at a press conference, “they used taxpayers money for their own leisure and are shamelessly insisting it was legal.”

This is surely just the tip of the iceberg.

System is By and For the Bureaucrats

But it seems, at a glance, the existing government is in a state of reformation. That said, I don’t think the reforms have been going in the right diretion. I’m sure you’ll find this next statement to go against my usual rants, as well as the recently stated gripes, but the problem isn’t the politicians; it’s the bureaucrats. They’re the people that actually run the country.

The laws enacted by politicians have proven ineffective time and again. Politicians hav enot been able to control bureaucrats, and bureaucrats have not been held accountable for their misdeeds. Reinforcing a house built on a rotten foundation will not stop it from collapsing. Though there are some elements of DPJ policy that give me cause for concern, it is definately time for a change of regime.