Lawmakers are not making any effort to plug loopholes in a crucial bill to amend the Political Fund Control Law, postponing decisions on many key aspects of the funding reform.

Furthermore, if the long-overdue review of legislators’ much-criticized financial privileges, left untouched for three years, is not completed, public distrust in politics will only increase.

The current regular session of the Diet, scheduled to end on June 23, should be extended to yield substantial reform results.

One key issue is ensuring effective disclosure of how Diet members spend their fixed monthly allowances. These are paid to cover research, travel and communications expenses.

The allowances were formerly known as “documents, communications, travel and accommodations” expenses, or “buntsu-hi” for short. It was no secret that the funds were often diverted from their intended purposes as there is no requirement for disclosing how the money is used.

After the last Lower House election, talks began between the ruling and opposition parties toward transparency in the use of the allowances. But progress stalled, primarily due to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s reluctance to take effective measures.

Prior to the Lower House vote on the amendment bill, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reached an agreement with Nobuyuki Baba, head of the conservative opposition Nippon Ishin (Japan Innovation Party), on a set of measures to deal with remaining issues.

To win support for the bill from the opposition group, which is keen to ensure transparency on the use of the allowances, Kishida acquiesced to Baba’s demand that their consensus document begin with the pledge to “take legislative measures to mandate the disclosure of the expenses and the return of unused funds.”

If the LDP gives the green light, amending the law to introduce this requirement would be easy. It was naturally expected the step would be taken during the current Diet session.

However, Yasukazu Hamada, chief of the LDP’s Diet Affairs Committee, stated that taking the legislative step during the current session was “challenging” due to scheduling reasons, and Kishida nonchalantly mentioned that “the consent document does not specify a concrete timeframe for realizing (the disclosure requirement).”

While it’s easy to blame Ishin for failing to set a deadline, this situation clearly shows that the LDP’s “promises” are nothing but stopgap maneuvers and unreliable. This casts doubt on the feasibility of various review items added to the supplementary provisions of the amendment bill.

During the Upper House deliberations, new loopholes surrounding “seisaku katsudo-hi” (policy activity expenses) were pointed out. These are funds that political parties are allowed to provide directly to individual politicians with no legal requirement to disclose how they are used. New rules for greater transparency have been introduced as part of the bill, but the required disclosure will only come 10 years later, which clearly contradicts the Political Fund Control Law’s principle of “constant monitoring” of political funds.

Additionally, when a party leader who has received policy activity expenses distributes funds to another legislator, it remains unclear how the end recipient ultimately uses the money, suggesting that the opacity of this funding “black box” may not improve significantly.

Although disclosure of policy activity funds remains postponed for 10 years, the retention and disclosure period for political funding reports remains at three years, a discrepancy that has been criticized.

The three-year period was conceived with paper records in mind. With the mandatory online submission of these reports set to kick in, the disclosure period should be significantly extended.

The timeline and other specifics regarding the promised establishment of an independent institution to monitor policy activity funds will be deferred to future deliberations. Komeito, the LDP’s junior coalition partner, and Ishin are reasonable in demanding that the establishment should be timed with the date the revised law will come into effect, which is Jan. 1, 2026.

Kishida has avoided specifying a timeline, but a deadline should be set, and deliberations on the specifics should begin promptly.

--The Asahi Shimbun, June 15