私：あの人だかりは何ですか。
友人：地方へ行く天下りの官僚の見送りらしいですよ。
Amakudari
(Haneda kuukoo de)
Watashi: Ano hitodakari wa nan desu ka?
Yuujin: Chihoo e iku amakudari no kanryoo no miokuri rashii desu yo.
(At Haneda airport)
Me: What's that crowd of people all about?
A friend: It looks like a send-off for a big-wig bureaucrat. He's probably on his way to a cushy post-retirement job in the provinces.
* * *
Amakudari originally meant to descend from heaven to earth. The word now refers to the appointment through influence of retiring bureaucrats of high rank to well-paying jobs in government-related or private-sector organizations.
It was a Monday morning at Haneda airport and I was on my way to Yamaguchi. There were about 100 people in the lobby-couples with their children and a rather ostentatious group of people sending off a company employee. When I asked about the rather con- spicuous group, I was surprised to learn that they weren't company employees at all, but government employees seeing off a newly retired ministry bureaucrat. The man was headed to a high-ranking position in an organization in one of the provinces.
I know minkan kigyo ni amakudari suru hito ga ooi (many people get "appointments through influence" in the private sector). Does this also mean extravagant goodbyes are a common scene in Japanese airports? After all, it was Monday morning and people are supposed to be working on Monday morning. Perhaps this is what happens to our tax money.
Perhaps this is how people who are supposed to be working for us waste half a day. The questions lingered and so I decided to check. Amakudari yakunin wa dono kurai iru no daro (How many retiring bureaucrats actually acquire ex officio top private jobs)? There are 434 people working in 72 government-related organizations throughout the country. Sono uchi 341 nin ga amakudari no yakunin da (Of that number, 341 got themselves planted in the job ex officio). 71.4 percent of the 434, indeed, are ex- bureaucrats. Konna ni, amakudari yakunin ga ooi to wa, honto ni odoroita (What a surprise to find out such a great number of officials received their jobs by using their influence as ex-bureaucrats).
At most, these men will work 10 more years. When they retire they'll then receive a retirement bonus of some \400 million. Even if they stay only four years they get \150 million. Not a few men and women, after having worked a lifetime at some private company, must lose interest in their work because the big jobs at the top always end up being filled by ex-bureaucrats (Yakunin wa itsumo amakudari jinji de kimaru).
Of course, the reason these ex-bureaucrats get appointed is that private-sector companies think that with an ex-bureaucrat in their company they'll have an easy time influencing how the government cuts up the budget pie. But should national budget allocations depend upon who has connections with the government and who doesn't? Of course not.
Amakudarijinji wa, yameta ho ga yoi to omou (I think placing retiring bureaucrats in well-paying jobs in the private sector should be stopped).