The Asahi Shinbun does not describe the situation in so many words, but explains that the Ministry for Social Welfare announced today the results of its work to clarify the status of over 50 million ‘floating in the ether’ pension records. The estimate of the number of pension records for which the holder’s name cannot be confirmed or for which the basic pension account number is ‘difficult to integrate’ rose from 19.75 million in December of last year, to 20.25 million records this year. This amounts to a quarter of all pension records and the Ministry was unable to say by when the matter would be resolved. It has once again become clear that the government and ruling LDP’s call for “checks to be conducted and correct pension payments to be made to every last individual” is going to be impossible to realize.
The government’s response when the total disarray in the pension service first made the news in July 2007 was to promise “to complete the collation of data and notify all concerned individuals by March 2008″. Government spokesman Machimura, at a news conference this morning, emphasized that “We never promised to be able to shed light on all 50 million records. I am happy that our commitment has been meticulously executed”. However, with such a large number of records still in disarray and the self-evident fact that the collation of data is not making progress, it seems that the government is not going to be able to avoid increasingly severe criticism.
