Gov't to submit 2nd extra budget to Jan. Diet session+

TOKYO, Oct. 5 Kyodo -
Japan's new government will likely submit a second extra budget for fiscal 2009
to the ordinary Diet session to start next January instead of the extraordinary
session later this month, as its reviewing of the first extra budget has been
delayed, government sources said Monday.

Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's government was widely expected to resume
allowances for single-parent households that were discontinued by the previous
government while implementing other main policies in the current fiscal year
ending next March, by laying out and submitting the second extra budget to the
extraordinary session.
But prospects for it being able to submit the budget within this year have
become murky, as the government is still revising the first extra budget even
after its self-imposed deadline of last Friday, and will also have to start in
mid-October compiling the main budget for the next fiscal year.
As of the end of last week, the government is believed to have cut an estimated
2 trillion yen from the already approved 14.7 trillion yen first extra budget
for fiscal 2009.
But the figure is well below the roughly 3 trillion yen it has targeted, and
the government is still looking for spending it sees as wasteful among the
figures reported by the ministries and agencies, according to lawmakers of the
ruling Democratic Party of Japan.
The Hatoyama Cabinet has said the first extra budget, worked out earlier this
year by the Liberal Democratic Party-led government, contains unnecessary
economic steps and that it will scrap some of them to redirect money to its key
policies such as allowances for families with children.
Against such a backdrop, Deputy Prime Minister Naoto Kan, also in charge of
national strategy, and Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii have indicated that the
second extra budget can be submitted to the ordinary parliamentary session,
according to sources close to the ministers.
But the other Cabinet ministers have yet to agree, with People's New Party
chief Shizuka Kamei, minister in charge of financial services, expressing at a
press conference last week his intention to craft a second extra budget before
the end of this year, citing concerns over the worsening economy.
On the revision of the first extra budget, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirofumi
Hirano said Monday the government will release within the next couple of days a
total figure reported by ministries and agencies on how much each can cut from
their respective allocations under the first extra budget.
''Minister Sengoku and others are currently looking over the figures compiled
by the second (of October),'' the top government spokesman said, referring to
Yoshito Sengoku, the minister in charge of administrative reform.
''I told him it (reviewing) should not be pushed back any longer and he should
settle (the revision) once,'' Hirano said, while adding it is up to Sengoku to
decide whether he will ask ministries and agencies to find more expenditure
savings or make it a final figure.
Hatoyama told reporters in the evening, ''We'd like to cut back on waste in
administrative work in a manner that will be visible to the people,'' adding he
believes voters support his government's efforts in cutting back on wasteful
spending stemming from collusive relations between politicians and central
bureaucrats.
He said he is hoping to announce the final figure before his scheduled
departure Friday for a two-day trip to South Korea and China, where he is
expected to hold bilateral summit talks with the countries' respective leaders
as well as a trilateral summit.
==Kyodo