TOKYO, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- Japan's opposition camp on Wednesday demanded that a new probe be launched into multiple scandals that have rocked the labor ministry leading to faulty statistics being gathered for key jobs and wages-related surveys.

Six Diet affairs chiefs from the opposition camp in discussions on the matter Wednesday, agreed that a third-party investigative panel that concluded its probe into a scandal at the ministry was lacking in objectivity.

During the probe, some of the questioning of ministry officials into faulty methods used to collect labor-related data were carried out by other officials also connected to the labor ministry, it has subsequently been revealed.

It was also revealed that the head of the labor ministry's secretariat and others in the ministry were present in the interviews of former senior ministry officials, adding to what the opposition camp maintains has led to a lack of "impartiality" in the investigations.

While slamming the government for having not yet fully revealed or accounted for the erroneous data collection methods, the Diet affairs chiefs, including the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party's Kiyomi Tsujimoto, blasted labor minister Takumi Nemoto over the scandals.

Previously, the opposition camp called for Nemoto's resignation. On Wednesday, Tsujimoto said the labor ministry's system of data collection had "grown rotten from the roots."

The embattled labor ministry said this week it found flaws in a survey related to jobs and wages, with the scandal marking the second such case this month erroneous methods have been revealed to have been used to gather official governmental statistics.

The latest flawed survey, according to the labor ministry, has resulted in the ministry's basic statistics on wage structure and the calculation of minimum wages.

The ministry said that the survey, which purportedly aims to provide a clear gauge of wage payment and structure based on employment type or occupation, had seen ministry inspectors cut corners in collecting the key data, such as by not hand-delivering questionnaires to businesses and collecting them, and giving shortened deadlines to respondents.

Along with calculating minimum wages, the statistics are also vital in calculating income losses to those who have died in accidents, the ministry admitted.

Last month, the labor ministry came under fire for releasing faulty jobs and wage data spanning a period of a decade or more, that resulted in over 20 million people not receiving full benefits.

Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry subsequently found that top bureaucrats and other senior officials at the ministry knowingly and systematically covered up the improper method for collecting the data, which serves as a recognized barometer of the nation's employment situation.

The improper method used for data collection has led to the government being forced to revise the state budget for fiscal 2019 and address the fact that unemployment insurance and workers' compensation in some fields, applicable to 20.15 million people and to the tune of 53.75 billion yen (491.65 million U.S. dollars), has gone unpaid.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe earlier this week was forced to apologize for the scandal that has led to rising public mistrust in the ministry and the wider government.

"I'm aware that the faulty surveys conducted over many years have violated people's trust in social security. I apologize to the Japanese people for this. We will reimburse underpaid unemployment benefits and workers compensation as swiftly as possible using simple procedures," he said of the issue. Enditem

Related

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)