Japan’s audit watchdog reported that huge sums of taxpayer money were wasted or obtained fraudulently through government programs to tackle the COVID-19 crisis.

Some errors and mistakes were bound to happen when the government found itself having to make emergency policy responses to the unpredented scale of the outbreak. It is, however, vital for the government to recoup the losses and share what it learned from the failings.

This will require extensive reviews and assessments of how the relief programs were implemented.

The Board of Audit this week released the results of its audit of government accounts for fiscal 2021, which ended in March this year. The agency, an independent entity, examined and evaluated government expenditures focused on COVID-related spending, as it did in the previous year. The board cited 310 cases totaling 45.5 billion yen ($311 million) in which public funds were spent inappropriately or not efficiently.

For instance, more than 60 percent of the small portable Wi-Fi rooters purchased by local governments for families without Internet connectivity were not used even once, according to the report. Around 1 billion yen in state subsidies went to waste as a result.

In this case, the subsidies program was hastily cobled together in response to nationwide school closures. Clearly, local governments did not have sufficient time to accurately assess the number of routers needed in their areas. Even so, the ratio of unused devices was way too high.

Another education-related program involved personal computers or tablet devices that were distributed to every elementary and junior high school student. This also was a flop as wide differences emerged among schools in how to effectively use the technology. It amounts to a typical example of rushing to introduce hardware without checking whether the intended users are ready for it.

The government needs to improve its policy approach to promoting digital education, for example, by coming up with more sound ideas to make effective use of the devices distributed to students.

The board uncovered disturbingly large numbers of cases in which COVID-19 benefits and grants were obtained fraudulently. The government does not deserve to be criticized for its decision to simplify the work to screen applications so as to ensure quick payouts of emergency relief funds. But it should have been accompanied by provisions to effectively check for instances of fraud.

A program to provide state subsidies to businesses that kept employees on the payrolls despite downsizing their operations due to the pandemic, as well as one that paid hospitals for setting aside beds to treat COVID-19 patients, was also plagued by fraudulent applications and double payments, according to the report.

The board’s findings indicate that the government organizations responsible for these programs failed miserably in follow-up inspections.

The so-called local regeneration emergency grant program also produced some controversial cases. One involved a local government spending the money to replace a public vehicle and another used the funds to install a giant squid statue as a tourist attraction.

The idea behind the program, designed to support local administrations’ own initiatives to reinvigorate their communities, was reasonable. If a wide range of uses is allowed for such grants, local governments should be obliged to provide clear and adequate explanations for how they spend the money.

The Cabinet Office, which was in charge of the program, called on local administrations to make their own evaluations of their expenditures and publish the results. As of the end of March, however, about 80 percent of the local governments had yet to do so.

As long as taxpayer money is used to finance government programs, postmortems must be part of the package.  Efforts must be made to prevent the same mistakes and glean valuable lessons for the future.

Diet debate on COVID-19 programs mostly focused on financing issues and failed to pay sufficient attention to their effectiveness and efficiency.

As it had approved unprecedentedly large amounts of government spending to tackle the public health crisis, the Diet should not be oblivious to its duty to undertake a careful examination to determine whether the funds were spent properly.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 10