Environmental assessment of controversial expressway construction in ancient capital is conducted by companies hiring former Infrastructure Ministry bureaucrats

   Akahata has learned that the Land, Infrastructure, and Transport Ministry awarded companies hiring former officials of the ministry contracts to conduct environmental assessment of plans to construct an expressway that will pass through the designated buffer zone of the Ancient Nara Palace Site in Nara City.

   The cozy relations between the ministry, that is pushing ahead with the construction plan, and those companies call fairness and relevance of the assessment into question.

   A total of 23 former ministry officials were rehired between FY 2003 and FY 2005 by 17 out of 20 companies that made bids for the projects to assess the impact on the cultural heritage, air quality, and the regional ecosystem to be caused by the planned four-lane expressway extending 12 kilometers, including an underground section, according to Akahata.

   The Infrastructure Ministry Nara National Highway Office offered seven environmental assessment projects between April 2005 and May 2007. The office awarded two companies that hired former ministry officials contracts for five projects costing a total of 184 million yen. The remaining two projects were awarded to another two companies (that also hired former officials) at a cost of 52 million yen through competitive biddings in which 20 companies took part.

   How those former officials were hired was unusual. In 2002, one of the companies hired as its Tokyo Office Engineering Department chief a former deputy director of the Ministry Tohoku Regional Development Bureau Shiogama Port and Airport Construction Office one day after his retirement.

   The UNESCO World Heritage Committee in 2006 adopted a resolution requesting that the Japanese government commission the environmental assessment to independent consultants.             - Akahata, June 22, 2007