14.3 million more pension records reported as unidentified

   At a House of Representatives welfare committee meeting on June 6, Welfare Minister Yanagisawa Hakuo made public that in addition to the widely publicized 50 million unidentified pension records there are 14.3 million pension records that cannot be identified.

   These pension records were booked manually before 1954 and kept on microfilm but have never been input into computers unlike the 50 million records that are stored on computers.

   Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo at a press conference on June 7 said, “The fact that the welfare minister had to disclose that there are 14.3 million more unidentified records following the revelation of the 50 million missing records shows how irresponsibly the government has been dealing with this issue. This attitude of the government will certainly increase the public distrust of the pension system.”

   He called on the government to fulfill its responsibility to urgently solve the problem.

   Shii stressed the need to give priority to solving the problem and to cancel the bill to dissolve the Social Insurance Agency that must shoulder the responsibility for the mismanagement.           - Akahata, June 7 & 8, 2007