Photo/Illutration Tetsuo Saito, the infrastructure minister, apologizes at the Dec. 15 Lower House Budget Committee session for the falsification by his subordinates of construction contract reports. (Koichi Ueda)

What triggered the Greek debt crisis, which threw the European economy into turmoil, was a problem in the handling of numbers.

Expenses at state-run hospitals were not accurately accounted for in the government’s books.

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, detected the problem in 2009 and urged the Greek government to fix it. But Athens made no serious response to the admonishment and dragged its feet on the issue.

A general election held later led to a transition of power in the country. The new government reviewed fiscal data and was stunned by what it found. As it turned out, the country’s fiscal deficit was far larger than the official figure indicated. The Greek government lost credibility and its bonds crashed.

The infrastructure ministry’s tampering with construction contract figures seems to be similar in nature to the Greek government’s misreporting of fiscal data, although its dimensions are much smaller.

It has been disclosed that the ministry regularly manipulated statistics about construction orders received by construction companies compiled from their monthly reports in an apparent effort to make the figures consistent.

Officials erased original figures and rewrote them in pencil. Even after the Board of Audit pointed out the problem in a report, the ministry tried to cover it up.

Daily news reports on such revelations about the scandal paint a troubling picture of how the government has treated official data lightly. Has the government learned no lesson from the irregularities concerning monthly labor data compiled by the labor ministry that came to light just three years ago?

If the latest violation makes it necessary to recalculate gross domestic product, it would be a shame for Japan as a major industrial nation. Well, actually, since restoring erased data is difficult, it is doubtful whether recalculation is possible. That would be an even more abject shame for the nation.

Figures in official statistics are, so to speak, the vital signs of the economy, such as temperature, pulse and blood pressure.

There should not be any doctors who do not care if the instruments to measure these signs are out of order.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 19

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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