Japan Press Weekly

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2017 March 29 - April 4 [POLITICS]

Tokyo JCP votes for metropolitan gov’t budget for 2017

The Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly in its plenary meeting on March 30 unanimously approved the draft budget for FY2017 proposed by Governor Koike Yuriko.

The Japanese Communist Party voted for the proposed budget because it includes increase in welfare and education spending. However, the JCP pointed to some problems in the draft such as the allocation of taxpayers’ money for non-urgent large-scale public works projects.

In the metropolitan assembly budget committee meeting on March 28, JCP lawmaker Izumi Naomi in her question time stated that the 2017 budget incorporated some of measures that the JCP has long demanded. As an example, she cited the budget allocation for building more authorized public childcare facilities and for an increase in wages of childcare workers. Izumi added that the budget is designed to provide a tuition exemption program for private high school students from households with an annual income of less than seven million yen and to offer a scholarship program for metropolitan high school students.

On the other hand, Izumi criticized Governor Koike’s budget for including road construction projects which face local opposition and other controversial development projects as well as for lacking measures to reduce the burden of the national health insurance tax. Izumi demanded that the metropolitan government use more money to build nursing-care facilities for the elderly and improve nursing-care workers’ working conditions, including an increase in wages.

Regarding Tokyo’s plan to relocate the wholesale market in Tsukiji to a former gas plant site in Toyosu, the JCP lawmaker cited the fact that in surveys of groundwater at the Toyosu site, toxic chemicals far exceeding maximum allowable levels set by established environmental standards have been repeatedly detected. Izumi stressed that as the metropolitan government failed to fulfil its promise to decrease the contamination level to meet the standards, it should cancel the relocation plan and consider repairing and renovating the current facilities in Tsukiji.

Past related article:
> JCP: Tokyo governor partially reflects citizens’ demands in her budget draft [January 26, 2017]