EDITORIAL: Reconstruction Agency should be upgraded for major disasters

The Reconstruction Agency, established in 2012, the year after the devastating earthquake and tsunami struck northeastern Japan, is likely to remain in place even after its term of existence expires at the end of March 2021.

The agency is expected to maintain most of its current functions and organization, including the post of the minister in charge.

As the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior partner, Komeito, has recommended the agency’s continued existence mostly as is, the government will decide by the end of the year on the related specifics.

Some areas in Fukushima Prefecture, where the catastrophic nuclear accident occurred, still remain subject to an evacuation order, while a slew of reconstruction projects in Iwate and Miyagi prefectures, which were hit by the destructive force of the huge tsunami, remain uncompleted.

The grim realities in disaster-stricken areas strongly argue against disbanding the agency.

But it should be allowed to move beyond simply continuing its role of supervising reconstruction work.

Experts warn of a high probability of gigantic earthquakes occurring in such high-risk areas as the Nankai Trough off the Pacific coast of western Japan and directly underneath Tokyo and surrounding areas. Any such quake would be a real national crisis, and the prospect is demanding policy measures to enhance the nation’s preparedness for large-scale disasters as well as an organization dedicated to research in issues concerning post-disaster recovery and reconstruction.

The organization needs to serve as the national headquarters for integrated efforts to deal with pre-disaster measures, disaster responses and recovery and reconstruction. This is a great opportunity to remake the Reconstruction Agency into such an entity.

Under the current system, initial disaster responses are led by the prime minister’s office while a 90-strong anti-disaster task force in the Cabinet Office will support disaster victims.

This system appeared to work, to a considerable degree, in responding to the strong earthquakes that struck Kumamoto Prefecture in 2016 and other recent disasters. But the predicted Nankai Trough earthquake would result in more than 2 million houses and buildings collapsing or burning down, according to one estimate.

It would be reckless to bet that the current system could deal effectively with such a tremendous disaster.

Both the Reconstruction Agency and the disaster-response team in the Cabinet Office are staffed by officials loaned from various government organizations for stints that last several years.

They are experienced and proficient in serving as liaisons and coordinators among ministries and agencies in Kasumigaseki, the nerve center of Japan’s central bureaucracy. But they may not have sufficient knowledge and expertise concerning front-line activities in disaster-hit areas.

That is why The Asahi Shimbun, in its editorial, has called for creating a disaster prevention agency as well as securing and training experts for the agency.

One idea that merits serious consideration is the integration of the Reconstruction Agency and the Cabinet Office task force into a new body headed by a minister that recruits experts annually.

The creation of new disaster-response headquarters not shackled by the highly compartmentalized bureaucracy in Kasumigaseki would also help make the public more keenly aware of the urgent need to take effective disaster preparedness measures.

This is an idea similar to the proposal by the National Governors’ Association to establish a “disaster prevention ministry” and some proposals from the ruling camp. During the LDP leadership election, former party Secretary-General Shigeru Ishiba called for the creation of such a body. Komeito also promised to seek to establish a reconstruction and disaster prevention agency in its platform for the July Upper House election.

If the government turns a deaf ear to these constructive ideas and simply allows the Reconstruction Agency to continue to operate as is, it would only mean accepting the status quo in a risky policy decision.

Such a proposal may alarm some turf-conscious ministries and agencies bent on protecting their powers and projects, prompting them to try to block it.

But the government of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato (1901-1975) responded to the increasingly serious problem of pollution during the period of Japan’s fast economic growth by establishing the Environment Agency (now the Environment Ministry), which transcended the bureaucratic structure and boundaries that dictated the roles and functions of ministries and agencies.

We urge the government and the ruling camp to reconsider its plan and create a new disaster prevention agency based on the Reconstruction Agency for integrated policy responses to the risks of major disasters.

That would be a policy decision that really builds on the lessons from the Great East Japan Earthquake.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 9