On Wednesday the Hatoyama administration's Government Revitalization Unit will begin the task of eliminating wasteful or unnecessary projects from fiscal 2010 budgetary requests, which have bloated to a sum of more than ¥95 trillion. Administrative Reform Minister Yoshito Sengoku, head of the unit, hopes to slash ¥3 trillion. We hope the unit, a policy pillar of the Democratic Party of Japan's election manifesto, will make reasonable, transparent decisions.
Unfortunately, the start of the unit's work was delayed due to lack of coordination between Mr. Sengoku and DPJ Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa. Mr. Sengoku originally wanted 32 DPJ Diet members for the unit. Since many freshmen Diet members were included, Mr. Ozawa objected. Now only seven DPJ Diet members will work in the unit.
The unit will utilize the knowhow of the nonprofit think tank Japan Initiative, experts outside the government, and local government workers deemed as having no conflicting interests. It will examine about 200 of the government's 3,000 projects. With so few DPJ Diet members in the unit, though, the setup may face difficulty in completing budget compilation in time.
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