military2

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

Japan to pay 80 million yen per U.S. housing unit in Guam

In the planned relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps in Okinawa to Guam, each housing unit for a U.S. military personnel family the Japanese government has pledged to construct in Guam will cost about 80 million yen or 2.5 times as much as each housing unit built in Japan for U.S. personnel with the Japanese "sympathy budget."

Revealing this on May 18 at the House of Councilors Administrative Reform Special Committee meeting, Japanese Communist Party representative Inoue Satoshi criticized the government for taking such an extraordinarily submissive attitude towards the United States.

Defense Agency Director General Nukaga Fukushiro stated that the construction cost for U.S. personnel family housing units in Japan included in the "sympathy budget" is about 30 million yen per unit.

Under the plan to realign U.S. Forces in Japan, the total construction cost for U.S. personnel family dwellings in Guam will reach about 280 billion yen. Judging from the Japanese government's explanation that it will construct 3,500 U.S. family housing units in Guam, the construction cost per unit amounts about 80 million yen.

Pointing out the public criticism that U.S. personnel family houses being built with the "sympathy budget" are luxurious because of their space 2.7 times larger than the average Japanese public housing unit, Inoue questioned, "Why will Japan have to pay for such expensive luxury housing in Guam?"

Nukaga answered, "As the U.S. government explains, the cost will be inevitably high," citing that construction materials will have to be brought in from outside of Guam.
- Akahata, May 19, 2006