This will be an important year for the government's plan to push devolution. A government panel for devolution will start submitting to the government a series of recommendations around June. The first main recommendation will concern the relegation of more powers to local governments in implementing laws and a drastic review of regional bureaus of the central government agencies and ministries.
The government hopes to submit a bill for a new division of powers between the central and local governments on the basis of the recommendations to an extraordinary Diet session to start in the fall of 2009. Bureaucrats of the ministries and agencies who want to retain power will put up strong resistance to the recommendations. Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda and Cabinet ministers should show leadership in neutralizing their resistance.
In its interim report made public in November 2007, the devolution panel spelled out three main goals — transfer powers from the central government to local governments, abolish or scale down regional bureaus of the central agencies and ministries, and strengthen the financial bases of local governments.
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