building

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

JCP Ichida: Government is to blame for falsified quake-resistant data

A licensed architect design office in Chiba Prefecture has been found to have falsified quake-resistance data of ferro-concrete buildings, with the result that the safety of many urban hotels and condominiums is not guaranteed.

The architect, Aneha Hidetsugu, said that experts should have detected the falsification. However, the adversely revised Building Standards Law of 1998 has allowed private companies to do the building confirmations and inspections upon completion. Aneha's data passed such inspections, and the architect was known among clients as being good at cost-saving measures.

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Ichida Tadayoshi at a new conference on November 21 said, "Of course, the licensed architect is to blame for the falsifications. The underlying cause, however, is in the government that has abandoned responsibility to guarantee safety." He said that the JCP will seek government responsibility in the Diet.

Ichida also said that before the building standards law was adversely revised, the JCP in the Diet pointed out the danger of increasing fraudulent inspections, which came true today.

Ichida said, "The thinking that the private sector can replace the public sector in assuring safety has failed and is now even threatening lives. The safety of buildings must not be opened as a new market for profit." -- Akahata, November 22, 2005