Nearly two-thirds of the funds the government budgeted through fiscal 2012 to provide jobs to victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami as part of the rebuilding effort never reached its intended target, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Aug. 30.
Nearly two-thirds of the funds the government budgeted through fiscal 2012 to provide jobs to victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami as part of the rebuilding effort never reached its intended target, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare said Aug. 30.
The national government earmarked about 300 billion yen ($3 billion) for the project. According to the ministry, a total of 124,019 people found jobs as a result of the program. Of those, just 47,663, or 38.4 percent, were disaster victims.
The Asahi Shimbun scooped the competition in June with a story that said the bulk of the funds were not reaching their stated targets: disaster victims and disaster-hit regions.
The labor ministry reported that in the nine hardest hit prefectures, including Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima, about 82.6 percent of those hired were disaster victims.
Funds also went to 38 other prefectures. In those prefectures, only about 2.3 percent of people hired through the labor ministry program were disaster victims.
The Finance Ministry and Reconstruction Agency had asked prefectural governments to return the funds for the jobs programs, but almost all had already been spent.
The Asahi report in June noted that funds in the rebuilding budget went to such projects as counting sea turtles, publicizing a green-haired mascot and promoting a manga event with an "idol" group in areas far from disaster-affected communities.