Four of the six members of the National Public Safety Commission, the body that oversees the National Police Agency, each earns a salary of 26.67 million yen a year, although the commission meets only once a week, NPA sources said Wednesday.

The four receive the pay of a full-time civil servant despite the fact that they meet only every Thursday.

The remaining two are Home Affairs Minister Kosuke Hori, who chairs the commission, and Sho Nasu, 75, adviser to Tokyo Electric Power Co., who earns 70,000 yen for each committee meeting he attends.

Nasu does not earn a salary as a committee member because his income from private sources exceeds what he would get from the government, the sources said.

"Although the commission members are not working every day as regular civil servants, their job is full-time in nature because they are obliged to attend emergency meetings, which may be convened at any time," an NPA official said.

However, there have only been two emergency meetings in recent years -- one of which was held Monday to discuss punishments for the two senior police officials accused of mishandling a high-profile abduction case in Niigata Prefecture.

The other was held in January 1989 following the death of Emperor Showa.

NPA sources said emergency meetings are almost never convened because cases are usually referred to the members individually for consideration.

The National Public Safety Commission is responsible for managing the police, but has little power to investigate the NPA.

The committee members consist of the home affairs minister and five members chosen by the prime minister to represent "public conscience." They come from the fields of academia, government services, the economy, the judiciary and journalism.

In addition to Nasu, the four appointed members are Sumiko Iwao, 65, a professor emeritus at Keio University, Akira Arai, 74, an adviser and former president of Nihon Keizai Shimbun Inc., Kazuo Isobe, 67, a lawyer and former deputy chairman of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, and Koji Watanabe, 65, former deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to Russia.

No restrictions are currently set on their terms of office.

The high salaries are likely to attract criticism of the commission, which is already under fire for deciding Tuesday not to reprimand or increase punishments on the two police officers in the Niigata Prefecture scandal.

The two, Koji Kobayashi, 51, head of the Niigata Prefectural Police force, and Yoshiaki Nakada, 55, head of the NPA's Kanto Regional Police Bureau, resigned Tuesday.

Because they were not dismissed, they will be allowed to collect their retirement allowances -- 32 million yen for Kobayashi and 38 million yen for Nakada.

It was revealed the two were playing mah-jongg and drinking at a Japanese-style hotel Jan. 28, the night a girl was rescued in the prefecture after more than nine years in captivity. They continued to do so even after learning of her release.

Kobayashi was also criticized for approving a false press release in which the woman's rescue was attributed to police and not to prefectural health officials, as was the case.

Kobayashi received a reprimand while Nakada was not punished.

The NPA said police nationwide have received about 800 phone calls and e-mail messages since Monday evening saying the two should be fired or more severely punished.

Niigata police have received 1,260 complaints since Feb. 17, the day Kobayashi admitted that police had falsified the press release, local police officials said earlier.

In response to the growing public criticism, the NPA said Wednesday it has decided to hold a conference of prefectural police chiefs nationwide at its headquarters in Tokyo on Saturday.

In an attempt to prevent similar scandals, the conference will deal with both the handling of important cases by prefectural police chiefs as well as how to handle the press.