Japan moves to clip bureaucrats' 'golden parachutes'
Monday, 11 June 2007
TOKYO, June 10 (AFP): Some of Japan's highest-flying bureaucrats may soon lose their golden parachutes.
The government, hit by a series of scandals, is seeking to tighten controls on the system of "amakudari", or descent from heaven, whereby retiring civil servants land cushy jobs in the industries they used to supervise.
The lower house of parliament Thursday approved a bill introduced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet that would create an independent "job centre" to end the practice of ministries helping bureaucrats find new jobs.
Experts say that if the shake-up-which still has to be approved by the upper house-is enforced it could curb a practice which encourages collusion and bid-rigging in public work projects.
"If they do what they say they're going to do-and that's a big 'if'-it will go very far to destroying the (amakudari) system," said Professor Gerald Curtis, an expert on Japanese politics at New York's Columbia University.
"A lot of companies don't want to hire any of these bureaucrats and in the past they had no choice. Even if they didn't need them you don't want to make an enemy of the ministry which has supervisory functions over your industry."
Under Japanese convention, bureaucrats are expected to retire when one of their peers from the same entry year reaches the rank of vice minister, leaving many 50-something civil servants looking for new jobs.
So the amakudari system was a way to entice the top university graduates to take up jobs in the civil service with a relatively low salary in the knowledge that they would land well-paid jobs in the twilight years of their career.
In return the companies would gain expert knowledge from inside the civil service.
But the big question, experts say, is whether amakudari will continue to operate informally after the reforms, with companies continuing to take on retiring civil servants to avoid irking the government ministries.
The government, hit by a series of scandals, is seeking to tighten controls on the system of "amakudari", or descent from heaven, whereby retiring civil servants land cushy jobs in the industries they used to supervise.
The lower house of parliament Thursday approved a bill introduced by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's cabinet that would create an independent "job centre" to end the practice of ministries helping bureaucrats find new jobs.
Experts say that if the shake-up-which still has to be approved by the upper house-is enforced it could curb a practice which encourages collusion and bid-rigging in public work projects.
"If they do what they say they're going to do-and that's a big 'if'-it will go very far to destroying the (amakudari) system," said Professor Gerald Curtis, an expert on Japanese politics at New York's Columbia University.
"A lot of companies don't want to hire any of these bureaucrats and in the past they had no choice. Even if they didn't need them you don't want to make an enemy of the ministry which has supervisory functions over your industry."
Under Japanese convention, bureaucrats are expected to retire when one of their peers from the same entry year reaches the rank of vice minister, leaving many 50-something civil servants looking for new jobs.
So the amakudari system was a way to entice the top university graduates to take up jobs in the civil service with a relatively low salary in the knowledge that they would land well-paid jobs in the twilight years of their career.
In return the companies would gain expert knowledge from inside the civil service.
But the big question, experts say, is whether amakudari will continue to operate informally after the reforms, with companies continuing to take on retiring civil servants to avoid irking the government ministries.