Japan Press Weekly

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2011 May 25 - 31 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

Executive board seats in nuclear-promoting bodies reserved for METI officials

Nuclear power-promoting organizations have reserved executive board seats for retired officials of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). This was discovered by Shiokawa Tetsuya, a House of Representatives member of the Japanese Communist Party

According to Shiokawa, all of the four board of directors of the Center for Development of Power supply regions, since its foundation in 1990, were former METI officials.

It was found out that in 2002, this organization gave to a municipal office a list of local residents who had refused to receive the national government’s benefits for accepting a nuclear power plant in their locality. The list was made by a utility company.

The Japan Electric Power Information Center, Inc. is an organization funded by electric companies’ membership fees. All of its seven senior managing directors have been men who retired from the government ministry since the center was established in 1958.

On May 25 at a Lower House Cabinet Committee meeting, Shiokawa revealed that 13 former METI officials are at present executives at utility companies.

Out of the 13, 11 were previous officials in the government’s Resources and Energy Agency or the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency.