Photo/Illutration Lawmakers elected to the Lower House on Oct. 31 enter the Diet building for a special session that opened on Nov. 10. (Hikaru Uchida)

The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on Nov. 16 said it will seek the return of lump-sum payments of 1 million yen ($8,750) given to new Lower House members for doing no actual work.

The payments were provided as “correspondence allowances” for the month of October. The rookie lawmakers were elected on Oct. 31, and they received the full amount despite fulfilling no official responsibilities for the entire month.

Politicians who were ousted in previous elections but returned to the Lower House in the Oct. 31 vote also got paid for no work.

Toshimitsu Motegi, secretary-general of the LDP, said the party will ask for the return of the allowances and decide where to donate the money.

Opposition parties have called for a full review of the setup that allows legislators to receive the monthly allowances even if they were Diet members for just one day.

About 120 politicians who were elected to the Lower House on Oct. 31 for the first time or returned to the Diet chamber were paid the full amount under the arrangement.

“Newcomers and former Lower House members who regained their seats were Diet members for just for a single day,” Motegi said following a meeting of senior LDP officials. “For those whose election victories were confirmed on Nov. 1, they had no record of being a lawmaker (in October).

“It makes sense that they should return the whole amount,” he said.

Regardless of Diet chamber, all lawmakers are eligible for the 1 million yen in correspondence allowances each month, in addition to their monthly salaries of about 1.3 million yen plus two bonuses.

According to the law governing Diet members’ salaries, the allowances are supposed to cover lawmaker’ expenses to “send formal documents and engage in correspondence of an official nature and other related activities.”

But critics describe the allowance as “a second salary” for Diet members.

Legislators do not have to submit receipts for how they use money, which is not taxed.

In addition, the lump-sum payment system does not take into account the number of days actually worked.

The Public Offices Election Law stipulates that legislators’ terms start from the day they are elected, meaning the current term for Lower House members began on Oct. 31.

One-day lawmakers were eligible for the full amount.

Those who were re-elected to the Lower House also received the entire sum although the chamber was dissolved on Oct. 14, creating a blank period before the Oct. 31 election.

Opposition Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party) has decided to donate all of the correspondence allowances paid to its rookie lawmakers.

Osaka Mayor Ichiro Matsui, the party leader, called the allowance setup “quite far removed from the public’s common sense.”

Yuichiro Tamaki, a Lower House member who heads the Democratic Party for the People, tweeted that the allowance should be paid based on how many days legislators served in the Diet that month.

Motegi of the LDP said the party will consider asking incumbents to return half of the monthly allowance or decide how much to keep based on the number of days worked.

He added that a review of the law covering the allowance should be debated by ruling and opposition parties at the Lower House steering committee.

(This article was written by Tamiyuki Kihara and Itsuki Soeda.)

Related News