Fight over Olympic Cost

One basic problem for Tokyo Olympics in 2020 has been left unsolved. That is who will pay for it. Governments of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan, other eleven regions and Tokyo Olympic Organization Committee overwhelmingly agreed on their share for ¥1.385 trillion of whole cost on Wednesday. While local governments rejected determining the payment for their share, ¥35 billion is still going nowhere.

Tokyo Olympic 2020 was invited with strong initiative of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to reinforce his political basis. After the successful bid for the event, they realized huge cost would be vested on the shoulder of host country. It was true that a lot of countries defied running for hosting Olympics with financial concern. Local governments were highly reluctant to cover the cost.

Reducing the financial burden for Tokyo Olympic was one of the most selling policies in the election campaign of Governor of Tokyo, Yuriko Koike. Koike made efforts to cut the initial estimation of TOOC last year, which mostly amounted to ¥1.8 trillion. With a deal of sharing the cost among the parties, it was decided that Tokyo Metropolitan Government and TOOC would pay ¥600 billion each and Government of Japan would owe ¥150 billion. However, the rest of ¥35 billion has still not fulfilled with firm resistance of local governments.

Governors of local governments had distrust on the initiative of Koike who once tried to increase the burden. While an initial plan required local government the cost only for minimum needs for security, medical care, transportation, Koike tried to add the cost for temporary facilities to them. Distrusting Koike, Governors of three prefectures around Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Saitama, asked Abe early settlement of the argument over the share.

The story was that Koike wanted to reduce the cost for implementing her campaign promise, she proposed a deal which included possible increase of the burden of other local governments, other local governments rejected it and Koike backed it off. It took a year for the process above. “I sincerely apologize for taking time on this issue,” told Koike in the Wednesday meeting.

No one has clear idea for finding who will pay for that ¥35 billion. Koike needs to appeal her achievement for the election of Tokyo Metropolitan Congress early July, which will be the first important competition for her party, Tokyo People First. Minister for Tokyo Olympic, Tamayo Marukawa, elected from Tokyo electoral district, is responsible for maintain the seat of Liberal Democratic Party in the Congress. As long as the rivalry between Koike and Marukawa is not settled, the argument over the cost will continue.