Abstract
The continuing occurrences of misappropriation of public funds have come to light since 1995 in many lacal governments of Japan. The improper expenses, such as the winning and dining practices of public officials, falsified business trips, inappropriate procedures of meetings, falsified expense accounts and the like, are idenified as fictitious outlays. An immense expenditure of originally taxpayers' money has been spent through inappropriate procedures, which is the worst scandal of a number of local governments.
The serious point at issue lies not only in the amount of improper expenses, but in the fact that each local government has been involved in the inappropriate use of public funds in a systematic and continuous way for quite a long time and that the inappropriate procedures have passed through the check of audits and local assemblies. Therefore, what we should do now is to make clear the actual state of this misappropriation and then to prevent recurrence of the illegal practices.
The aim of this paper is to clarify the situation of inappropriate public expenses of lacal governments in Japan and to find the effective way of preventing these inappropriate budget procedures, considering the background of these improper outlays. It is argued that full disclosure of the documents is essential to the appropriate and fair use of public funds. Furthermore, I examine the present relationship between administrative authorities and local assemblies and take into consideration the function of local assemblies.
