All-out efforts needed to build temporary housing
More than 130,000 people have been forced to stay in evacuation centers, where privacy is a rare luxury, for more than a month since the catastrophic March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
The evacuees want to move to temporary housing as soon as possible, but building these units has faced considerable delays. The central government and local governments in affected areas must do more to get these construction projects up and running.
About 72,000 temporary housing units need to be built to accommodate evacuees mainly from three prefectures in the Tohoku region who lost their homes in the earthquake and tsunami. Evacuees will start moving into these units as soon as they are completed.
However, little progress has been made in arranging procedures to apply for temporary housing units. So far, just 36 units in Rikuzen-Takata, Iwate Prefecture, have become available, but there were 32 times more applicants than units available in the lottery for them held April 5.
Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Minister Akihiro Ohata said Tuesday that 30,000 units will be available before the end of May. We urge the government to make sure construction of the remaining 42,000 units is completed as soon as possible.
===
Suitable land scarce
One factor behind the delay is the lack of suitable land.
Districts battered by the tsunami are not options as building sites. Many areas are still strewn with debris and rubble. Flat land on higher ground is ideal, but suitable and available sites such as leveled public land are few and far between.
Securing building sites also was difficult after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake. The Hyogo prefectural government ended up with no choice but to build many of the 48,300 temporary housing units on reclaimed land and in suburbs far from the devastated urban areas. However, there were fewer applicants than anticipated, so more than 4,000 units were left vacant.
Most disaster victims want to live in units to be built near where their homes once stood. Due consideration must be given to maintaining local communities and helping disaster victims rebuild their livelihoods. Constructing housing units in distant places should be avoided as much as possible.
Perhaps the government should consider using private property, including land used for agricultural and industrial purposes, as building sites. This would require some drastic measures, such as a temporary suspension of some regulations conventionally applied to land use.
===
Secure material supplies
Another problem is the scarcity of plywood, insulation and other materials indispensable for building temporary housing units.
Six plywood factories in Miyagi and Iwate prefectures, which accounted for about 30 percent of national production before March 11, have shut down after being damaged in the disaster.
Making matters worse, some construction companies bought up more of these materials than they needed in anticipation of a supply shortage that would push up prices. This exacerbated the material shortages.
The hoarding of building materials must not be allowed to impede construction of temporary housing. The government needs to closely monitor the situation to ensure sufficient supplies are reaching devastated areas.
Temporary housing is nothing more than a place to live for the time being. Therefore, it is essential to consider a reconstruction plan based on a long-term vision of building new communities made with homes built to last.
Tax hike necessary for reconstruction
The nation must work hard to reconstruct and revitalize Japan after the damage caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent tsunami. The funds needed for these efforts should be shouldered by the entire nation as this disaster can only be termed a national crisis.
The government has estimated the March 11 disaster caused up to 25 trillion yen in damage and that government spending for reconstruction would be more than 10 yen trillion.
What can the nation do to secure sufficient funds?
The government spent 5 trillion yen on reconstruction after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake, mostly through the issuance of government bonds. However, fiscal conditions have worsened since then. The government can no longer afford unregulated issuance of government bonds.
Reconstruction of the disaster-stricken areas is the nation's top priority. A temporary tax hike by creating a "restoration tax" to secure funds for the necessary work is unavoidable.
According to the results of several opinion polls, 60 percent to 70 percent of respondents said they would support such a tax hike.
The government should discuss in detail the contents of the reconstruction tax and knock it into shape while drafting the second supplementary budget for fiscal 2011, which includes funds for a full-fledged reconstruction project.
===
Review handout measures
However, we would like to propose a condition.
The government and the ruling coalition should first trim expenditures of the main budget for fiscal 2011 to boost appropriations for reconstruction. This means such handout measures as child-rearing allowances must be reviewed. If the government and the ruling coalition merely try to hike taxes without reviewing these handouts, they will never be able to win public understanding on the tax hikes.
Once these measures have been reviewed, the government and the ruling coalition should carefully explain the need for the temporary tax hikes.
They should issue special government bonds to build up funds for reconstruction work and use the restoration tax to redeem them. Unlike ordinary government bonds, the special bonds will not force future generations to face a financial burden as funds will be secured for redemption of the bonds in advance.
Introduction of the restoration tax should be decided on the basis of economic factors. If this system is separated from the government's general account, taxpayers will be able to check whether the funds really are spent on reconstruction, making the tax hike more acceptable to the public.
===
Restoration tax best option
The question is where should the restoration tax come from? Temporary hikes of income and corporate taxes will place burdens only on some groups of taxpayers and would not increase tax revenues significantly.
A one percentage point increase in the consumption tax rate is expected to bring in 2.5 trillion yen in tax revenues. But the consumption tax is uniform throughout the nation, meaning people in disaster-hit areas would have to shoulder the increased burden, too.
They all have both advantages and disadvantages. But the restoration tax is aimed at making a wide range of people share the tax burden equally to support reconstruction work. If this is taken into account, the consumption tax and a few other taxes should be considered.
The earthquake and tsunami disaster has not changed the significance of a consumption tax rate hike to secure stable financial sources for social security benefits.
In discussing the introduction of the restoration tax, the ruling and opposition parties must not forget the point that this tax should be compatible with the unified reform of the taxation and social security systems.
0 comments:
Post a Comment