In its final report submitted Dec. 6, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's advisory commission for privatizing four road-related public corporations called for a halt to runaway highway construction. The report warns against the "triangle of collusion" among "road tribe" legislators, related bureaucrats and public-works contractors, which has distorted Japan's political, economic and social structures and left a combined debt of 40 trillion yen on the books of the four toll-road operators.
Will the public regain benefits lost to this "political-bureaucratic-corporate complex"? Will Koizumi push privatization along the lines of the report? Or, will he strike a compromise with the road tribe and other antireform forces in his party? The success or failure of highway reform, an integral part of the public-sector reform pillar in Koizumi's structural reform initiative, hinges on these questions.
The commission's blueprint, based on a public-sector consolidation plan approved by the Cabinet last December, lays out two clear-cut principles: (1) Highways that are not really necessary should not be constructed, and (2) taxpayers' burden should be minimized.