Of the more than ¥251.4 billion collected for survivors of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, only about 15 percent had been distributed by the beginning of this month, largely due to the scale of the disaster and the lack of local manpower to distribute the funds.
The fund distribution process starts with allocations decided by a government committee, then routed to prefectures, which then distribute funds to cities, towns and villages to pass out to the designated victims.
But the scale of the twin disasters wiped out many local governments, rendering them incapable of distributing all the money on their own.