Minister OKs Nishikawa's reappointment as Japan Post president+

TOKYO, June 22 Kyodo -
Internal affairs minister Tsutomu Sato said Monday he decided to authorize the
proposed reappointment of Japan Post Holdings Co. President Yoshifumi Nishikawa
after Nishikawa offered to take a pay cut to discipline himself over a scandal
involving an abortive plan to sell the Kampo-no-yado nationwide resort inn
network among other punitive measures.
''I have judged it (the reappointment) to be appropriate in light of these
disciplinary measures,'' Sato told reporters, suggesting that he intends to
draw the curtain on the issue involving the chief of the government-held
holding company that controls Japan Post-related operations including mail
delivery, banking and insurance.
Sato, minister of internal affairs and communications who also oversees
operations of Japan's postal system, also said Prime Minister Taro Aso approved
his decision to allow Nishikawa to keep his post.
In a meeting with Sato at the internal affairs ministry, Nishikawa offered to
give up 30 percent of his pay over the next three months to discipline himself
in connection with Japan Post's plan -- foiled earlier this year amid a public
outcry -- to sell the Kampo-no-yado inn network to major leasing company Orix
Corp.
Japan Post Vice President Shokichi Takagi will also give up 10 percent of his
pay over the three-month period, according to Sato.
These self-disciplinary pay cuts will be incorporated into the holding
company's operational improvement program to be submitted to the government,
possibly on Wednesday, ministry officials said.
Nishikawa is now expected to get reappointed as president of Japan Post at a
shareholders' meeting slated for next Monday. The Japan Post group, now fully
owned by the government, is going through a 10-year privatization process that
started in the fall of 2007.
Nishikawa himself told reporters, ''I am acting on the presumption that I will
be (allowed to keep the presidency).''
Other key pillars of Japan Post's operational improvement program will include
drawing up a set of rules on sales of its real estate properties within a year,
setting up a panel of advisers aimed at enhancing the group's corporate
governance and picking a chairman of Japan Post from among outside directors
and making the chairman double as head of the new panel.
On Dec. 26, Japan Post announced a decision to sell all 79 Kampo-no-yado resort
inns and relevant facilities to Orix for 10.9 billion yen, saying the decision
was made as a result of competitive bidding.
But on Jan. 6, the then internal affairs minister Kunio Hatoyama opposed the
selection of Orix, saying it ''may be seen as a race whose result has already
been decided'' as Orix Chairman Yoshihiko Miyauchi had been involved in the
crafting of the government's original plan to privatize Japan Post.
Japan Post and Orix subsequently gave up the envisioned transactions of the
resort inns, which had been built for policyholders of ''kampo'' postal life
insurance before the government decided to privatize Japan's postal system.
Although Hatoyama then demanded Nishikawa's ouster, Aso brushed aside his demand.
Hatoyama, once a strong backer of Aso, resigned in protest on June 12, dealing
a blow to the Aso administration with a national election due by the fall.
==Kyodo