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Japan Farm Minister Says Won't Step Down Over beef

Posted on: Tuesday, 31 January 2006, 00:25 CST

By Teruaki Ueno

TOKYO -- Japan's farm minister, facing calls to quit after failing to follow the cabinet's policy of inspecting U.S. meatpackers before allowing beef imports to resume, said on Tuesday he had no intention of stepping down.

Japan reinstated a ban on imports of U.S. beef earlier this month after cattle parts believed to carry a higher risk of mad cow disease were found in a shipment from the United States.

The two-year-old ban, which was imposed after the discovery of the first case of mad cow disease in the United States in December 2003, had only been lifted on December 12.

Last November, the cabinet had promised that the government would inspect U.S. meatpacking plants to ensure they complied with agreed procedures before imports resumed.

But Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa admitted on Monday that Japan had only begun the inspections after lifting the ban.

"I am not considering leaving my post," Nakagawa told a news conference on Tuesday.

"My duty is to carry out agriculture administration and ensure food safety," he said, adding that Japan was waiting for a U.S. report before it would restart beef imports.

Mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is believed to be caused by malformed proteins spread among animals through infected feed.

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human version of BSE, is thought to be spread by eating contaminated meat. It has caused more than 150 deaths worldwide, including one in Japan.

The public furor over the minister's admission on Monday is another headache for the government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, which is grappling with a series of scandals.

The main opposition Democratic Party had called for Nakagawa to resign after he acknowledged the government's promise had not been kept, and a consumers' group echoed that stance.

"Prime Minister Koizumi should dismiss immediately Agriculture Minister Nakagawa, who outrageously neglected public safety and anxiety," Yuzo Sasaki, a Democratic lawmaker, told a plenary session of parliament's lower house.

A consumer group echoed the Democrats' complaint.

"The Japanese government should not have accepted what the United States said at face value, but should have checked the U.S. safety measures and policy itself," Hiroko Mizuhara, secretary general of the Consumers Union of Japan, told Reuters.

"Nakagawa should quit to take responsibility," she said.

KOIZUMI SUPPORT SLIPPING

Support for Koizumi, who is set to step down in September when his term as party chief expires, has already begun to slip.

A survey conducted by the Asahi newspaper over the weekend showed 45 percent of respondents backed Koizumi's cabinet, down from 50 percent in a December poll.

Backing for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) also slipped to 36 percent from 41 percent while that for the Democratic Party, battered in a general election last September, rose to 16 percent from 13 percent, the newspaper said.

Asked about the government's handling of the beef import ban, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe told a news conference, "It is necessary to provide a proper explanation to the people and for involved ministries and agencies to act together."

Abe is a leading contender to succeed Koizumi.

Besides the fuss over U.S. beef imports, Koizumi and the LDP have also come under fire for tapping high-flying Internet entrepreneur Takafumi Horie to run in last year's parliamentary election as a poster boy for reform.

Horie, 33, the former CEO of Internet portal Livedoor Co., was arrested last week on suspicion of breaking securities laws.

The government has also had to defend itself against charges that its reform policies contributed to a scandal centered on an architect who faked quake-resistance data to make buildings he designed appear to meet safety standards. Both private inspectors and local authorities failed to discover the scam.

On Monday, yet another scandal emerged when police arrested a top defense official and two others on suspicion of involvement in bid rigging for projects ordered by the Defense Facilities Administration Agency, which is in charge of land and buildings belonging to the military.

(Additional reporting by Miho Yoshikawa)

Source: REUTERS

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