The government has drawn up anticorruption proposals including possible imprisonment for irregularities involving retired bureaucrats who land jobs in entities they formerly oversaw, according to an internal document obtained by Kyodo News.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>But perceived loopholes in the proposals call into question whether they will be effective.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The government is planning to include reform measures in several bills, including one to revise the National Public Service Law, and to present those bills to the Diet later this year, government sources said.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The target of the measures is the practice of 'amakudari,' a Japanese phrase literally meaning 'descent from heaven,' whereby current and retired bureaucrats land jobs in firms or other entities the government oversees or is closely connected to.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The practice has come under fire because such arrangements have been the source of widespread corruption.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The pillar of the proposals is a set of rules including one under which retired bureaucrats could face imprisonment of up to a year if they ask current bureaucrats to favor entities or people who employ the retirees and were formerly overseen by them.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Incumbent bureaucrats could also be punished if they follow such illegal requests, according to the proposals.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Active bureaucrats could also face imprisonment if they are directly involved in negotiations about postretirement jobs with companies they oversee.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The sources said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration may start consulting the Liberal Democratic Party-New Komeito ruling coalition about the details of the measures in late January.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>The government will then submit the bills to the Diet during the 150-day regular session that begins later this month, they said.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>It is questionable, however, if the envisioned revisions will be effective, as the proposals contain many loopholes.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>For example, the proposals do not cover attempts by bureaucrats to land jobs in government affiliates, even though such entities are the most popular destination under the amakudari practice.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>According to a report released by the government in December, 34.3 percent of senior bureaucrats who quit the central government in the year from August 2005 ended up taking jobs in government affiliates.</PARAGRAPH> <SUBHEAD> Matsuoka admits call</SUBHEAD> <PARAGRAPH> Farm minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka admitted Friday that his aide asked the Cabinet office for updates on a scandal-hit donor group's application to become a nonprofit organization, but denied he pressured the office to approve it.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>Sanae Takaichi, a state minister who oversees the Cabinet office, made a similar admission about reports that one of Matsuoka's secretaries asked how procedures were going for confirming the group's validity as a government-authorized NPO.</PARAGRAPH> <PARAGRAPH>One of his supporters in Kumamoto Prefecture 'had asked my office to confirm the schedule for –

establishment procedures," Matsuoka told a news conference.

The group in question is the World Business Expert Forum, which bought 1 million yen worth of fundraising tickets for Matsuoka.

Matsuoka had failed to book the purchase in his political funds report and was forced to put it in the report in September.

The forum, an organization associated with scandal-hit business consultant FAC Co., was raided in June along with FAC, which is suspected of illegally collecting about 13 billion yen from about 8,000 investors.