TOKYO, Dec 7: Japan’s general election this month and political calls for a big supplementary budget will delay the drafting of next fiscal year’s state budget until January for the first time in nearly two decades, government sources say.
That means the full-year budget may not pass parliament in time for the April start of the new fiscal year, forcing the new government to craft a stop-gap budget to fund immediate costs like civil servant salaries, until it is enacted, they say.
In Japan, the government usually compiles a draft budget for next fiscal year around Christmas and submits it to an ordinary parliament session for deliberations from January.
That allows the government to pass the budget through parliament before the new fiscal year, and gives it plenty of time to map out plans on how much bonds it would issue to fund costs that cannot be met by tax revenues.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s decision to call a snap election for Dec. 16 changed all that. Drafting of next fiscal year’s budget would have to wait until a new government is formed, making a delay until next year almost a certainty.
‘I think bureaucrats will be spending all of their year-end and New Year holidays preparing a draft’ that will serve as a platform for the new administration in crafting the budget, said a government official with knowledge of the proceedings.
A draft full-year budget will not be ready until January and will only be submitted to parliament in February, several government officials said on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
The main opposition Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which polls suggest is on course to win a solid majority in the election, has pledged a huge spending package to revive the stagnant economy funded by a supplementary budget for this year.
A senior LDP official has said spending under the extra budget may well exceed 5 trillion yen ($61 billion).
Deliberations on an extra budget will further delay passage in parliament of next fiscal year’s budget, heightening the chance the government would have to craft a stop-gap budget to meet immediate fund needs until the full-year budget is enacted sometime around April or May, the officials said.
The government’s plan on how much bonds it plans to issue next fiscal year will also not be available until next year, contrary to the usual practice of such a plan being announced in December, they said.
The last time the government failed to compile a draft budget by year-end was in 1993, when then Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa delayed drafting of the fiscal 1994/95 budget to prioritise reforms in Japan’s political system. (AGENCIES)
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