OSAKA -- More than six months after mobster Kunihiko Konishi was arrested for decades of embezzlement, Osaka is set to scrap two dozen city projects to aid the plight of the local 'buraku' community of descendents of the feudal outcast class.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Konishi, a senior leader of the Buraku Liberation League's Osaka chapter, was arrested in May and charged with embezzling in connection with his management of a city-owned parking lot. Since then, the city has been mired in corruption and embezzlement scandals, and it was revealed that he is a senior figure in the Yamaguchi-gumi underworld syndicate.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Konishi's arrest exposed decades of corruption involving city-funded projects to aid the plight of the buraku people.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Osaka now plans to shut down two dozen of the projects, mainly welfare-related, after March.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The city at first met strong resistance from the liberation league, an influential lobby group fighting to root out discrimination against descendents of the feudal outcasts.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>But the public is no longer tolerant after years of misusing taxpayer money.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'Two decades of lax administrative and political oversight of municipal projects for the buraku community are the primary reason for the current problems,' Hiromu Nonaka, former chief Cabinet secretary, told a recent symposium.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Nonaka, once a heavyweight in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, was born in a buraku community, once suffered employment discrimination because of this, and has been a longtime supporter of the liberation league.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>'Twenty years ago, when I was a Diet member, I warned local governments that they needed to be careful when providing funds for 'dowa' –

projects because the system of distributing funds could easily be abused," he said. "Local political leaders at that time bear much of the blame for Osaka's current scandals."

Osaka pumped billions of yen into social welfare projects run by Konishi for more than three decades in line with its policy to ease the plight of the buraku people.

At the seminar, Nonaka did not address the implications of Konishi's arrest and mob ties on current public attitudes toward the buraku community. The liberation league has apologized for what Konishi did as a senior in the group.

Supported by public momentum to slash funds for the community, Osaka this month approved plans to abolish 24 dowa-policy projects in March, ranging from human rights centers to computer education for the elderly.