Betrayers against Goodwill

Special Investigation Unit of Tokyo Regional Public Prosecutor’s Office and Japan Fair Trade Commission searched six developers for road building in Tokyo with suspect of illegal huddling before the auctions for reconstruction of highways broken by Great East Japan Earthquake. Those developers twisted reconstruction effort, based on tax money additionally paid by every citizen, to illegal business to obtain as great share as possible.

NEXCO East, administrative company of highways in eastern part of Japan, made twelve auctions for reconstructing nine highways in Tohoku area in August and September 2011, four or five months after the earthquake. Receiving leakage from someone who knew the relationship of developers, JFTC started investigation on twenty developers a year ago to charge them to the prosecutor’s office on these issues.

According to reports, three major developers, Maeda Road, Nippon Road and NIPPO, were the fixers for distributing the projects. With help of Seikitokyu Kogyo as liaison, three developers had a meeting in Sendai in July 2011 to make a roster for reconstruction projects for nine highways. Final bid for them was ranged from ¥748 million to ¥2 billion.

One of the evidence of illegal huddling is high “bid price rate.” When NEXCO has an auction, it would present preferable price to pay for the project. Developers would compete how they could receive the job with as lower price as possible. That is auction. In the auctions for highway reconstruction in 2011, bid price rate was very high, 94.77% in average. It had been around 80% the previous year. That showed no competition actually existed.

One of the officers with the developers explained that secret adjustment was necessary for make fast progress in reconstruction. “In the situation of great amount of reconstruction effort, even major corporations could not deal with all projects. Distribution was needed,” told another one.

Here’s a question; Is reconstruction business? National government was incompetent in unexpectedly great disaster. Suffered people were waiting for helping hands. People in other area wanted to help them so badly. That was why most people understood additional taxation for twenty-five years. The developers tried to make a business, seeking that tax money. It is fair to say that they are betrayers against goodwill of the Japanese. Not morally tolerated, heavy penalty is suitable.