State reform minister Nobuteru Ishihara said Friday he will give up trying to present a bill to reform civil servant employment practices to the current session of the Diet, which ends Monday.
Ishihara, minister in charge of administrative and regulatory reforms, indicated he will try to present a revised bill to the extraordinary session in the fall.
The bill would be aimed at introducing merit-based wage and personnel systems, and cracking down on the practice of "amakudari," which literally means "descent from heaven."
Under the practice, retired civil servants often take plum jobs in public corporations or the private sector in industries formerly under their bureaucratic jurisdiction, and typically try to obtain favors for their new employers from the agencies for which they had worked.
"In question-and-answer sessions, such as in the Diet, the National Personnel Authority gave answers that were opposite mine and it shows the matter is not agreed upon within the government," Ishihara said at a news conference, referring to why the bill will not be submitted.
"And we did not gain the acceptance of the governing parties," he said. "The bill cannot be submitted as long as there is no understanding from the relevant Cabinet members and the ruling parties. It would serve no purpose if it cannot withstand Diet debate."