TOKYO, March 1 (Xinhua) -- A no-confidence motion has been jointly submitted by Japanese opposition parties against the labor minister in relation to flawed data compilation involving wage surveys, local media reported Friday.
The motion against Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Takumi Nemoto was submitted to the lower house on Friday by senior officials from the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ), as well as the Democratic Party For the People and the Japanese Communist Party.
The opposition camp, who have been calling for Nemoto to step down to take responsibility for his ministry's practice of conducting flawed data surveys leading to the compilation of erroneous public statistics, are now attempting to block the passage of the budget bill for the new fiscal year.
The improper methods used for data collection has led to the government being forced to revise the state budget for fiscal 2019.
CDPJ Diet affairs chief Kiyomi Tsujimoto, while calling on Nemoto to resign, maintained that the government is intentionally concealing the true state of the economy by not revealing real wage data.
The opposition camp has, based on independent panel findings from lawyers and statisticians, accused the administration of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of deliberately releasing faulty data in an attempt to overly qualify the success of Abe's "Abenomics" brand of economic policies.
The opposition camp has also accused Abe of ordering the alteration to the data himself.
It was revealed recently that Abe's secretary, four years ago, may have expressed concern that the labor ministry had changed its survey samples.
According to calls from the opposition camp, the labor ministry might have come under pressure to ensure that the data it was collecting and compiling reflected the success of "Abenomics" economic policies package.
Hence, Tsujimoto said Friday, the opposition parties cannot vote on the budget bill.
The opposition camp has also highlighted the fact that the labor ministry's flawed data compilation methods have resulted in unemployment insurance and workers' compensation in some fields, applicable to 20.15 million people and to the tune of 53.75 billion yen (480.74 million U.S. dollars), going unpaid.
Nemoto, under heavy fire for his alleged dodging of investigations into the matter, told reporters Friday he plans to continue to work hard in his post to fulfill his responsibilities. He said he would set about correcting the his ministry's blasé methods of handling public statistics.
