Rural heads warn LDP not to privatize postal services

Rural heads warn LDP not to privatize postal services.
From JAPAN WEEKLY MONITOR, April 9th, 2001

COPYRIGHT 2001 Information Access Company TOKYO, April 4 Kyodo The head of a national association of town and village offices on Wednesday
warned the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that privatizing postal
services would cost it support in rural areas as well as the association’s
backing. National Association of Towns and Villages head Fumio Yamamoto told LDP
Secretary General Makoto Koga and Shizuka Kamei, policy chief of the ruling
party, that postal employees provide a kind of welfare service for elderly
people in rural areas by checking up on them when delivering mail,
association officials said. Yamamoto, who met the LDP executives at the party’s headquarters in Tokyo,
said privatization would mean an end to this informal welfare system and that
elderly people would have to pay for house visits, the officials said. The remarks by the mayor of the town of Soeda in Fukuoka Prefecture came
amid concerns over a shortage of people working in welfare fields and
municipality-run nursing care systems. The Public Management, Home Affairs and Posts and Telecommunications
Ministry handles Japan’s three state-run postal services — delivery of mail
and parcels, postal savings and ”kampo” limited life insurance coverage. Privatization of the services has been a controversial issue in Japanese
politics and reluctance to embrace the idea is believed to be a reason why
some senior LDP members have shied away from clearly supporting Junichiro
Koizumi in the upcoming party presidential race. Koizumi, who has expressed interest in becoming a candidate for the race to
replace unpopular Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, backs a plan to reorganize all
the three postal services. Heads of small post offices, mainly outside urban areas, are strongly
opposed to privatization. The organization of post office heads is believed
to be the largest and most united support group for the LDP. Page NA THIS IS THE FULL TEXT: COPYRIGHT 2001 Kyodo News International, Inc. COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale GroupJAPAN WEEKLY MONITOR, 09th April 2001