People's interest in the work of the Government Revitalization Unit, the Hatoyama administration's task force for cutting wasteful public spending, appears to be as high as last year. As the unit screened some 150 projects run by 47 of Japan's 104 independent administrative agencies April 23 and April 26-28, a total of some 3,100 people got a firsthand look at the screening process. Each day, more than 300,000 people watched it over the Internet.
From Thursday the unit will carry out another round of screening, this time on nonprofit public service corporate bodies. It has chosen more than 70 screening targets. This round also will be open to the public. Live images will stream over the Internet.
Independent administrative agencies were created in 2001 as part of administrative reform. The screening process has exposed waste and lack of transparency in their operations. For example, 317 officials and workers of the Urban Renaissance Agency (UR) were found to have landed jobs at UR-related bodies, and the UR had free contracts worth ¥72.5 billion with them.