About 30 percent of foundations and nonprofit groups in Japan that receive some form of public subsidy hire former public officials, according to a government white paper released Friday.
The annual report on public corporations shows that 8,059 such groups have former bureaucrats on their board, out of which 7,307 groups have board directors designated by government agencies that have direct jurisdiction over them.
Out of the more than 10,000 groups that have employees on regular payrolls, about 3,500 of them are paid annual salaries of more than 8 million yen. Some 139 groups paid salaries of more than 20 million yen.
At public corporations subject to control by the central government, 4 percent, or 6,112, of the board directors were former state officials, down 226 from the previous year. One out of four such officials hold full-time positions.
At the national level, 20 groups exceeded the government guideline that former bureaucrats should not account for more than one-third of board director positions, down from 104 in the previous year. At the prefectural level, the figure was 659, a decline of 131.
The white paper recorded 26,354 foundations and public corporations in existence as of November last year.
Government subsidies paid to these groups amounted to 365.9 billion yen in fiscal 1998, up 98.11 billion yen from the previous year. The government paid 137.3 billion yen as fees for public projects, down 51.8 billion yen from the previous year.