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 End the wasteful use of taxpayers' money and realise a fair and transparent political system |
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| Japan is being weakened by a conglutinated structure that acts like a monster preying on taxpayers' money. We will totally eradicate the special interests influencing politicians and bureaucrats, and the conglutination of politicians, bureaucrats, and big business. We will eliminate the dishonesty concealed by political power and this conglutination to ensure that absolutely no tax revenues are used wastefully, and will proceed with a radical reform of politics and of the executive branch from the perspective of the ordinary citizen. |
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2-1 Resolutely change the way tax money is used.
[1] Halt wasteful public works, and switch emphasis to people's daily lives and the environment.
Our target is to cut public works controlled directly by the government by 30%, or ¥900 billion, by the time of the budget bill for the 2006 fiscal year. From the budget for the 2004 fiscal year we will halt construction and planning for large-scale directly controlled public works projects such as the Kawabegawa dam project (Kumamoto Prefecture; total project cost ¥265 billion) and the Yoshinogawa moveable dam plan (Tokushima Prefecture; total project cost ¥104 billion), which are classic examples of wasteful spending. For these we will substitute projects that genuinely aid regional development.
In addition, we will closely examine other projects such as the Tokuyama dam (Gifu Prefecture) project. We will then divide them into categories according to how to deal with them, for example whether they should be frozen, terminated, or revised, and start immediately on the most feasible.
With respect to projects such as the Isahaya Bay land reclamation project, on which work is well advanced (¥225 billion of the total cost of ¥249 billion already spent), and the Nagaragawa estuary dam project, which has been completed, we will review what is to be done with them after sounding out the view of local residents and local governments.
Our aim is not to reduce the overall extent of projects but to make it possible to undertake more projects for less expense. We will achieve that by reforming tendering procedures so as to prevent collusion, including by expediting the introduction of electronic tendering.
[2] Abolish the Japan Highway Public Corporation, and make most motorways toll-free.
We intend to make motorways easy to use in the regions, to lower distribution costs, and to bring greater convenience into people's daily lives by changing motorways into freeways. In tandem with that we will return the making, use, and management of roads, which have hitherto been in the thrall of various interest groups, to local communities and the people.
(1) Abolish the Japan Highway Public Corporation and make most motorways toll-free.
To make best use of motorways, which are not used effectively despite the huge investment made in them, stimulate regional economies, and reduce distribution costs, we will make all motorways except those in certain major urban areas toll-free within three years. We will abolish the Japan Highway Public Corporation and the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Authority. Eliminating tolls will not only reduce costs to motorists but will also greatly increase the number of entrances and exits to motorways, with the result that regional motorways will be brought back to life as local roads that local people can make good use of in their daily lives.
Some ¥2 trillion must be spent annually on motorway-related debt repayments and road maintenance and management. A portion of the combined budgets for national and local roads, which currently total ¥9 trillion, could be diverted to that, and other funding could be derived from exceptional tolls payable only in major urban centres, which would be imposed as part of measures to deal with congestion and environmental damage.
(2) Abolish earmarked funds for road construction, reduce vehicle-related taxes, establish an environment tax.
Taking into account that vehicle-related taxes are high because of the priority given to road construction, we will divert funds earmarked for road construction to general use, and reduce taxes substantially. During the 2005 fiscal year we will submit to the Diet and seek the enactment of a bill to abolish earmarked funds for road construction, and a tax-reform bill to halve the motor vehicle tonnage tax and abolish the automobile-acquisition tax.
In parallel with these moves we will takes steps to bequeath a pleasant global environment to future generations and to carry out Japan's international responsibilities as the chair country of the Kyoto Protocol. Accordingly, in addition to formulating measures that take Japan's international industrial competitiveness into consideration, we will establish an "environment tax" on sources of carbon dioxide縲?as an effective measure for dealing with global warming. It will correspond with the extent of the burden imposed on the environment by imposing a tax of some ¥3,000 per ton of carbon content.
2-2 Prohibit golden parachutes for bureaucrats, and reduce civil service personnel costs.
We will prohibit the giving of golden parachutes to retiring senior bureaucrats. We intend, by the 2005 fiscal year, to extend the scope of the regulations, which cover only private-sector companies, to encompass special corporations and other governmental institutions.
In addition, during our administration we will take steps to create a transparent civil-service system based on International Labour Organization recommendations. This will include guaranteeing the fundamental labour rights of ordinary civil servants, but at the same time revising the functions of the National Personnel Authority and establishing a fair personnel-evaluation system. We also will establish political leadership over the bureaucracy and clarify responsibility for policy, by for example opening up posts at the level of the bureau director-general and above to recruitment from outside the civil service.
By pursuing decentralization and revising the functions of central-government ministries and agencies, we will follow a phased programme to include moving national civil servants between different ministries and agencies and reducing their number, and revising the remuneration and other conditions of high-ranking bureaucrats. Within four years our reforms will create efficient government enabling total personnel expenses for national civil servants to be cut by at least 10%, and more efficiency and downsizing will be pursued by such means as greater decentralization.
2-3 Eradicate dishonesty by politicians, and cut the number of Diet members.
[1] Full disclosure of donations by companies and organizations.
To get rid of influence-peddling and the role of special interests, in the 2004 Diet session we will table and seek enactment of a bill on the prevention of political corruption.
(1) We will expand the scope of penalties under the current influence-peddling law to cover family relatives of Diet members and the secretaries of municipal mayors.
(2) We will ban totally all political donations by companies receiving orders for public works.
(3) We will broaden the disclosure criteria for donations by companies and organizations to ensure full disclosure of all amounts, not only amounts above a total of ¥50,000 in a one-year period. We will also make it obligatory to disclose documents such as income and expenditure reports on the Internet.
[2] Correct disparities in the value of a vote, and reduce the number of House of Representatives seats by 80.
We will submit to the Diet and pursue the enactment a bill to revise the Diet Law so as to freeze the salaries and other payments to Diet members in police custody, and to terminate them if they are judged by the courts to have committed criminal acts.
We will also submit a bill aimed at correcting the disparity in the value of votes in the single-seat constituencies for the House of Representatives, and at reducing by 80 the number of seats in the House of Representatives for members appointed under the proportional-representation system. The bill will be submitted in 2004, and as the ruling party we will summon representatives of all other parties and groups to discuss it and reach agreement under the observation of the people or Japan, before it is put into effect.
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