The Democratic Party of Japan-led government plans to submit an extra budget for fiscal 2011 to the Diet on April 28 to finance postquake reconstruction, a senior DPJ lawmaker said Thursday.
The government will seek to get a budget of about ¥4 trillion enacted by May 2, said Jun Azumi, Diet affairs chief of the DPJ, as he talked with his counterparts from major opposition parties.
The submission to the Diet is planned for Thursday afternoon, coupled with a policy speech by Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda in both chambers and questions from party representatives, he said.
The government and ruling coalition then want to deliberate on the budget from April 29 to 30 at the House of Representatives Budget Committee and May 1 to 2 at that of the House of Councilors.
These plans will be discussed when DPJ Secretary General Katsuya Okada holds talks with his counterparts from other parties Friday.
The first extra budget for the fiscal year that began April 1, compiled without relying on new debt issuance, will cover the costs during the early stage of reconstruction in the Tohoku region, which was devastated by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Rift delays bill
The government said Wednesday that it will delay until May the submission of a bill to the Diet outlining the general direction of the post-March 11 reconstruction campaign, due to differences of opinion between ruling and opposition parties, according to lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan.
The government and the DPJ had hoped to submit the bill to the Diet by the end of this month, but the submission will now be delayed until after Golden Week in early May, they said.
The bill is intended to outline basic structures for reconstruction of the Tohoku region ravaged by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
But the conservative Liberal Democratic Party, the main opposition party, is strongly opposed to the idea. The LDP says that the government must instead create a new agency to oversee the postdisaster reconstruction effort.
SDF to stay mobilized
The biggest-ever mobilization of Self-Defense Forces personnel for relief efforts will be maintained for the time being, Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa said Thursday, more than a month since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami devastated the Tohoku region.
The mobilization of about 100,000 SDF personnel has provided a sense of security to disaster-stricken people and reducing the number at this point could have a negative “psychological impact” on them, while not many temporary houses are ready yet, Kitazawa said in an interview with Kyodo News.