The government should limit the science ministry's fiscal 2012 budget requests for the "K" supercomputer and other innovative technologies, a subcommittee of the Lower House's administrative oversight committee said Wednesday.
Nine lawmakers on the 14-member subcommittee, under the Audit and Oversight of Administration Committee, sought either cuts or a review of the ministry's budget requests, as it kicked off its review of budgetary expenditures aimed at weeding out wasteful projects.
The supercomputer developed by Riken, a state-backed research institute, has logged the world's fastest computing speed at 10.510 quadrillion computations per second when using all 864 computers that comprise its system.
The subcommittee's recommendations will be discussed at a session to deliberate on the projects and at a meeting of the oversight committee's directors to be held Thursday at the earliest, legislators said.
During the day's session, many of the nine lawmakers criticized the process of selecting users of the supercomputer as lacking transparency due to inadequate information disclosure. They also rapped the Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Ministry for providing insufficient information about the supercomputer project.
The budget evaluation process is aimed at boosting lawmakers' supervision of government bodies.
The panel's upcoming conclusions will be incorporated in policy recommendations the oversight committee will put forward for the fiscal 2012 budget, they said.
The panel consists of lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party of Japan and the two largest opposition parties, the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito. The lawmakers interviewed Cabinet ministers, senior vice ministers and parliamentary secretaries in charge of specific projects.
After a series of hearings, the subcommittee will make its final recommendations, such as "project abolition," "budget request cut" and "budget increase."