Alteration of pension records said rampant

An investigative committee that reports directly to the labor minister acknowledged in a report Friday that local social insurance officials systematically fabricate pension records.

The panel, however, said that while the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Social Insurance Agency were not involved in a systematic way, senior officials of the organizations should be held accountable for failing to properly supervise these local offices.

The panel also blamed the ministry and the agency for pressuring local office workers to maintain a high pension premium collection rate, an edict it said encouraged acts of fabrication.

"The panel's findings should not be the end of the case. The Social Insurance Agency should launch a full-fledged investigation itself and try to save the victims of the fabrications," said Chuo University Law School professor Shuya Nomura, who headed up the panel.

The panel, which reports to labor minister Yoichi Masuzoe, said it analyzed 69,000 pension records and questioned staff at the ministry, the agency and local offices.

By prefecture, most of the fabrications were found in Tokyo, which had 35,310 cases, or about half of the total.

Among local social insurance offices, the Shibuya office topped the list with 4,991 cases, the report said.

Some local offices fabricated data to "eliminate" pension premium arrears at the request of struggling small businesses who were unable to pay them. The practice then spread to include tampering with employee salary data to reduce the employers' premium payments, the report said.

In one bankruptcy case in which the company representative could not be located, a social insurance office employee created a false document by using a widely available "hanko" for the signature.

Three cases were found in which charges could be leveled for forging an official document or breach of trust, but the statute of limitations on the cases had already expired, the paper said.