Who should be accountable for the disaster?

 April 4, 2015

Gov't reluctant to charge TEPCO over rent money for voluntary Fukushima evacuees

http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150404p2a00m0na014000c.html

The government has been covering the rent for apartments provided for evacuees from Fukushima Prefecture, while not demanding payment for this purpose from Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) -- the operator of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant -- it has been learned.

While TEPCO is ready to pay the rent costs for those who have been forced to evacuate from their hometowns due to government evacuation orders, the utility is reluctant to do the same for evacuees who left their homes voluntarily. The Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry has fallen in line with TEPCO on the matter, while the decision on which party is to charge TEPCO -- the national government or Fukushima Prefecture -- is still also up in the air.

Since the Disaster Relief Act has applied to the entirety of Fukushima Prefecture following the 2011 nuclear crisis, local residents -- whether forced or voluntary evacuees -- have all been provided rent-free apartments as temporary shelters. Prefectural governments that have taken in Fukushima evacuees initially submit the housing charges to the Fukushima Prefectural Government, which compiles data -- but the central government has effectively been covering the entire cost.

According to the Cabinet Office, which holds jurisdiction over the Disaster Relief Act, the aid money spent on disaster relief measures in Fukushima Prefecture totaled 31.7 billion yen in fiscal 2013 and 28.7 billion yen in 2014, based on the fiscal budget. Much of the aid money is believed to have gone to cover apartment rental costs, meaning that taxpayers' money is going into something that should be covered by TEPCO.

For the cost of government-led decontamination work on the radioactively contaminated areas, meanwhile, the Environment Ministry and other related parties have been charging TEPCO 229.1 billion yen since 2012. The utility has paid 121.7 billion yen for the decontamination work, including areas outside the designated evacuation zones.

According to sources close to the matter, the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry began consulting with TEPCO and the industry ministry over the housing provision during the spring of 2012, at which time the health ministry was overseeing the Disaster Relief Act. In August of that year, the health ministry and TEPCO notified the Fukushima Prefectural Government that the utility was to cover rent costs for evacuees from no-entry zones. They agreed that the utility should pay for the rent shouldered by the central government.

TEPCO and the industry ministry show reluctance, on the other hand, in shouldering the rent costs of voluntary evacuees.

The government's dispute reconciliation committee for nuclear damage has proposed to pay a monthly 100,000 yen fee for each forced evacuee as compensation for psychological damages, while setting the amount at 120,000 yen in total for voluntary evacuees (except for children and pregnant women, who are offered a total of 720,000 yen). Following the committee's decision, the industry ministry and the utility seem to reject the idea of dealing with the two types of evacuees equally.

Furthermore, the central and Fukushima prefectural governments have failed to settle which party is to charge TEPCO for the rent money. Since the Ibaraki Prefectural Government demanded that private businesses pay rescue costs for a 1999 accident at the JCO nuclear material processing plant in the prefectural town of Tokai, the health ministry sought to establish measures that enabled the Fukushima Prefectural Government and municipal governments in the prefecture to charge TEPCO over the rent money. However, the Fukushima government has claimed that the central government should take responsibility for demanding that TEPCO pay the housing fees, since the latter has been shouldering the cost.

A Cabinet Office representative told the Mainichi Shimbun that the government cannot demand that TEPCO pay for something the utility refuses to pay -- suggesting the government's plan to exempt TEPCO from covering rent payment compensation for voluntary evacuees.

Masafumi Yokemoto, a professor of environmental policy at Osaka City University, points out that a reason why the central government and other related parties haven't charged TEPCO over the rent money for voluntary evacuees is because they don't want to admit that those people are victims of the nuclear meltdown.

"The issue clearly shows how the government and TEPCO try to avoid responsibility for clarifying accountability for the disaster," Yokemoto added.

April 04, 2015(Mainichi Japan)