deregulation

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Private sector will enter public businesses

A government panel on regulatory reform has proposed that Prime Minister Koizumi Jun'ichiro submit to the next ordinary Diet session a bill to introduce a system to allow private sector businesses to participate in public services through competitive bidding.

The idea is that all public services, including the public Employment Security Bureau (job-replacement offices), the Japan Student Services Organization, and the Japan Organization for Small and Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, will be open to the private sector.

In the proposals put forward on December 21, the government's Regulatory Reform and Privatization Promotion Conference focused on this public-private sector competitive bidding system as an essential means to establish a small government with high efficiency.

A system allowing the private sector to operate some public facilities has already been introduced, but the government panel seeks full opening of public services to the private sector, arguing that the present system is partial and limited.

The government panel shelved the introduction of a new bidding system for national museums and galleries due to fierce criticism from cultural figures, including Hirayama Ikuo (president, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music), Takashina Shuji (director, Ohara Museum of Art), and Nobel Prize winner in physics Koshiba Masatoshi, who argue that arts "cannot be promoted by market forces, efficiency, or profitability."

The value of these "public businesses" is expected to be a 50-trillion yen, thus the business world sees a big investment opportunity.

However, what will pursuing privatization in public services bring to the public? Nothing, but it will enable the government to abandon its responsibility to defend the public interest, safety, and social welfare services.
- Akahata, December 22, 2005