Should the Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and His Ministers Receive Extra?

Political opponents intend to do nasty things to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida — the Constitutional Democratic Party, the main force of the local opposition, intends to introduce a bill to parliament demanding a freeze on the salaries of the head of government and his ministers.

The demarche is being undertaken in connection with another proposal from the Agency for Personnel Issues to increase payments to civil servants. They are adjusted annually by the average percentage increase in wages in the private sector. In exchange, government employees are not allowed to go on strike.

So, the constitutional democrats said that, of course, they are not against increasing salaries for ordinary employees of ministries or, say, the military. But they are against the government’s salary increase — they say that the people will not understand this against the backdrop of rising prices in the country, including for utilities. In short, there is no reason to materially reward the Prime Minister and his ministers.

A government bill already submitted to parliament members provides for an increase in payments to Prime Minister Kishida by 460 thousand yen (that’s a little more than 3 thousand dollars) per year. Ministers are offered to increase them by 320 thousand yen (about 2.1 thousand dollars) per year.

And for reference, the Japanese Prime Minister’s monthly salary is just over 3.3 million yen (about $22,000). Ministers have less — 2.45 million yen (about 16.3 thousand dollars) per month.