Japan Press Weekly

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2016 November 9 - 15 [POLITICS]

Ex-senior officials’ parachuting organ receives over 12.4 billion yen for ‘My Number’ system

The only public corporation which deals with the operation of the “My Number” system has collected more than 12.4 billion yen during the past two years as co-payments from 20 major city governments.

Local governments, when entrusting a service to an outside organization, normally sign a contract with a company through competitive bidding or after careful examination. However, regarding the Social Security and Tax Number System, they have no other choice than to pay the amount the company unilaterally asks as it is the only supervisory organ for the system. Because of this, it has been impossible to verify if the amount is reasonable or not.

The use of tax money to pay this body’s asking price came to light as a result of the investigation conducted by Akahata and the Japanese Communist Party Assemblypersons’ groups in the 20 major cities.

According to Akahata on November 9, the organization in question is the local governments-affiliated corporation Japan Agency for Local Authority Information Systems (J-LIS). It has solo power over the management of the My Number system. Despite being publicly funded, the organization has been under criticism as being non-transparent.

J-LIS is also known as a “special” entity where retired bureaucrats obtain well-paid executive posts. In fact, out of the four fulltime board members, two are former officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs which is in charge of the controversial ID system. As J-LIS is not subject to the information disclosure law, it has never made public the sum of contracts with makers that developed the system.

Ever since the My Number system was implemented in January this year, it has been hit by a series of problems.

Kuroda Mitsuru of the Institute for Autonomous Information and Policy Studies said, “The central government is planning to expand the use of the My Number system. In short, a lot more money will go to this corporation. Whether or not we continue paying tax money to such an unsound ‘parachuting’ agency is the question that needs to be asked.”

Past related articles:
> ‘My Number’ project-awarded companies gave 240 million yen in donations to LDP [November 8, 2015]
> Welfare ministry official arrested for bribery over ‘My Number’ system project [October 14 & 15, 2015]
> Leak of personal information about public pensions overturns basis of ‘My Number’ system [June 2, 2015]