The government is considering forcing ministries and agencies to turn over memos and undisclosed documents regarding "amakudari" practices by retired bureaucrats and politicians to the new Administrative Reform Council, government sources said Thursday.
The move derives from the experience of Democratic Party of Japan lawmakers who, in their previous role as the opposition, uncovered the public pension record debacle and other improprieties that were traced to bureaucrats after acquiring undisclosed documents from the government.
The DPJ-led government believes it is highly likely that additional documents will reveal more waste, the sources said.
The council, which is chaired by the prime minister, will be tasked primarily with uncovering waste and corruption hidden within administrative services.
It will set up theme-based subpanels to root out waste, including one tasked with reviewing public and quasigovernmental entities criticized as engaging in amakudari, the practice in which public and private entities provide lucrative jobs to retired senior bureaucrats who used to work at the ministries and agencies that oversaw them.
Amakudari literally means "descent from heaven."
A secretariat will soon be established at the Cabinet Office and will be staffed by 30 to 40 people to coordinate the work by the panels, the sources said. The secretariat could be headed by Hideki Kato, who represents a think tank called Japan Initiative.