Fukuda seeks cleanup of slipshod document management

BY HISANORI IMAMURA AND YUKIE YAMAO

THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

A dusty cardboard box sat in the basement of the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare unattended for three years. When it was finally revealed last fall that the box contained files of 418 hepatitis C sufferers and information vital in the scandal over tainted blood products, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda was clearly upset.

"Important documents that are closely linked to people's lives are handled inappropriately," he told reporters. "I feel like saying 'I'm fed up with this mess' and 'stop this right now.'"

As recent events have shown, Japan is not an advanced nation when it comes to the preservation of important government documents.

But now, with Fukuda as prime minister, moves are under way for passage of a bill that would strengthen the role of the National Archives of Japan in preserving and managing government documents.

Fukuda indicated on Saturday that he would appoint Yoko Kamikawa to serve concurrently as state minister in charge of public documents management. Kamikawa is currently state minister in charge of gender equality and social affairs.

The government will also set up a panel of experts this spring to look into legislation to strengthen management of public documents. Kamikawa will oversee that panel.

Fukuda has been interested in management of public documents since about 20 years ago.

At that time, an elementary school in his electoral district in Gunma Prefecture was putting together a commemorative publication. Fukuda was impressed when a photo of war-torn Japan was found in the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States to be used for the book.

In December, Fukuda was asked his thoughts about document management at a session of the Upper House Audit Committee.

"If a democracy is defined as a system in which each citizen is capable of making accurate decisions, then the facts have to be clear," Fukuda said. "I believe one of the fundamental tasks of a central government is to think about how to announce and preserve records and facts."

When Fukuda served as chief Cabinet secretary under then Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in 2003, he set up an advisory panel to look into the proper management, preservation and use of public documents.

After stepping down as chief Cabinet secretary, Fukuda set up a league of Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito lawmakers to look into document management.

In December, the league submitted a special appeal to Fukuda, who by that time had become prime minister.

The two main points of a proposal now being hashed out would place the National Archives at the center of document management and encourage local governments and the private sector to release any historical documents they may have.

Diet members working on the bill are hoping to submit legislation in the current Diet session.

Takeo Kawamura, a former education minister, is one of those pushing the proposal.

"We want to clearly spell out that the central government will take responsibility for the management of public documents and define public documents as 'a legacy of all the people,'" Kawamura said.

The discovery of the files on hepatitis C patients is just one example of the lax management of public documents in the past.

Last year, the Defense Ministry was found to have destroyed daily logs of Maritime Self-Defense Force refueling ships that had been operating in the Indian Ocean as part of the anti-terrorism campaign in Afghanistan.

Under Defense Ministry regulations, ship logs are supposed to be moved ashore after being stored on board for one year.

However, ministry officials found that all 255 ships covered by this regulation had failed to abide by the regulation. Instead, those ships kept the logs on board for years.

At least nine ships, including those already mothballed, were found to have inadvertently destroyed such logs.

The reason for such slipshod management of documents is that each ministry and agency is basically allowed to handle documents in whatever way it sees fit.

The implementation order for the information disclosure law does contain standards for preservation periods depending on the type of document, such as 30 years for documents used in Cabinet decisions on compiling and revising laws.

But each ministry also sets up its own internal regulations.

Documents that have exceeded their preservation period are supposed to be moved to the National Archives if they are considered of historical importance.

However, the ministry has to sign off on that transfer.

Currently, almost all documents are either destroyed or have the preservation period extended.

Experts said that in any given year, about 1 million documents reach the end of their preservation period. Of that number, at most 1 percent are transferred to the National Archives.

In fiscal 2006, the actual figure was only 0.5 percent of the documents.

"In the United States, public documents cannot be destroyed without the approval of the National Archives and Records Administration, so the percentage of documents transferred is high," said Mitsuoki Kikuchi, president of the National Archives. "I believe the reason behind such a low ratio of documents transferred in Japan is that ministries are afraid that once documents reach the National Archives, they will all be made open to the public."

The scale of Japan's National Archives pales in comparison to those in other nations.

In the United States, the National Archives and Records Administration has about 2,500 employees, compared with 42 in Japan's National Archives.

The Japanese figure is even minuscule compared with China's 630 and South Korea's 290.(IHT/Asahi: February 27,2008)