MAEBASHI, Gunma Pref. (Kyodo) Land minister Seiji Maehara told six governors from the Kanto region on Tuesday the administration will pursue its controversial cancellation of the Yamba Dam project in Gunma Prefecture but will come up with an alternative to the decades-long project.
It is the first time the governors of Chiba, Gunma, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tochigi and Tokyo, which hold stakes in the ¥460 billion project and joined hands to promote it, have together directly confronted the land, infrastructure, transport and tourism minister.
"We promised (the public) to change the way taxes are used from concrete to people," Maehara said at their meeting in Maebashi. "On the occasion of a change in government, we will review how dam projects should be."