Gov't under fire over huge COVID-19 aid contract for ad giant Dentsu

It boggles the mind how nothing changes. After they bullied that girl to death there were plenty of calls for Dentsu to be barred from government contracts. Air was sucked through teeth, heads were bowed, and then they quickly got back to normal. And now this. If the government wanted to send a message they would ban Dentsu and affiliated companies for a few years from bidding on contracts. The fact that they don't indicates where their loyalties lie. Pork barrel politics at its finest.

If this were another country, I'd say Abe is in trouble. But, it is not, so Abe will deny any knowledge of it, Dentsu will say it is the fault of sub-contractors, whom they will admit they need to be tougher on and from now on will be completely transparent, and there'll be a shoulder shrug, a Shouganai, and that's it.

Everything related to Dentsu stinks. In fact, everything connected to Abe stinks to high heaven. But, anycase, not my country. If the Japanese don't care, why should I?

"What is strange is the government is protecting Dentsu from scrutiny about lack of information and accountability," Tajima said.

Not strange just the LDP gifting tax payer money to a company that then complicates the process for tax payers to claim same money. Gray? Gay doesn't even cover how vile and corrupt both the LDP and this disgusting company are if you got either on the bottom of your shoes you would burn your shoes.

Dirty, dirty people. And the public keep turning a blind eye

Rancid.

This could be one of worst examples of multi-layer subcontracting.

Who is responsible for monitoring governance authority, where the buck stops, essentially the role of the prime contractor , i.e the higher-tier subcontractor, especially in managing its subcontracts? A contract to distribute the 2 trillion yen???

Service Design is a private, not-for-profit group which does not disclose ownership details and has a staff of 22. Dentsu founded it with Pasona Group Inc, a temporary staffing agency, and Transcosmos Inc, an IT services firm; three of its nine directors and several of its employees are from Dentsu group companies.    

22 Staff would have neither the time nor inclination to be fully aware of legal requirements or any systems technology to fully absorbing time frame uncertainties. lacking availability of resources or a comprehensive proficiency or expertise to manage competently the operational conditions.

It truly remarkable that in the midst of a pandemic, and the importance that distribution of essential government aid could have been handled in such an inferior and shoddy manner.

The ministry declined to disclose the full list of companies involved because of a clause in Japan's disclosure law. If revealing information about a company could harm the firm's competitive position, it said, it is not obliged to disclose it.

Little or no transparency, to audit and manage J country's economic and social resources.

It flipping outrageous

Legal money laundering? In Japan?

Dentsu did facilitate the 2020 Games for Japan - which must have cost a lot - 4-5 years of work in and out of Japan, and 2-3 floors of staff dedicated to it. And with the postponement they've potentially lost income.

Nice to have friends in high places.

Cronies gonna crony.

I have been saying for year that Japan is very highly institutionally corrupt & this is an example of MANY MANY cases, it is one of the reasons Japan's debt is so high.

Basically the LDP make corruption LEGAL!! And yeah sadly most Japanese dont care, so its on them

How do you say, "Tip of the iceberg" in Japanese?

How do you say, "Tip of the iceberg" in Japanese?

氷山の一角 (Hyouzan no ikkaku)

Hiro

Unlike most other countries, Japan is very strict when it come to transparency of where money end up. 

Lord forgive him for he knows not what he is saying.

What a joke, looks like you are taking us for fools.

The ministry has said that there were five tiers of subcontractors and at least 63 companies involved. 

That's called money laundering.

but actually took less than 1% of the total 80 billion yen for managing the project

80 million yen ain't bad for doing basically nothing.

Japanese bureaucrats are above the law, with a carte blanche to do as they like.

Sorry, 800 million.

How is Abe still the PM?

@hiro - simply pathetic

I have seen a lot of subcontracting just to get the money. It is called missappropriation of funds from the firdt tier contractor who is made of of buddies from Dentsu. Sure those buddies are well paid. Names ?

Why is everyone surprised by this?

The whole thing is extremely.....corrupt!

The "Cool Japan" initiative was by and large an expensive failure because not only was it conceived by UN-cool high-level bureaucrats, it was executed by stodgy Dentsu, who financially did very well with the public funds.

@Hiro

Japan is the only country in the world to have sampled a comet.

Are you really telling us that it is incompetence and not foul play that is the problem?

The ministry "declined to disclose the full list of companies involved"

Officials have disclosed only "the names of only 14 of [the 63 companies involved]"

Service Design "does not disclose ownership details"

....Dentsu: "the contracting structure was not opaque"

Densu no Densetsu. And boy, what a stinky legend it is.

But, anycase, not my country. If the Japanese don't care, why should I?

You should care, because they parlay the benefits they derive from it into leverage over countries like yours and mine. Leverage that they’re loathe to admit exists, even as they’re up to their necks facilitating its acquisition.

Dentsu has received so much corporate socialist welfare that it would not be socialist at all to nationalize them and use their assets to help those in need for crisis relief.

@Oyatoi

Good point.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to convey the level of ire that I feel ( in this forum) for these thieves...

If the government wanted to send a message they would ban Dentsu and affiliated companies for a few years from bidding on contracts. The fact that they don't indicates where their loyalties lie. Pork barrel politics at its finest.

The government can’t really ban itself. This would be the state enterprise in a Socialist systems. In a Democratic capitalist system, you can’t be so blatant and have to play around a bit and hide it.

Talking about Dear Leader, has anyone seen him lately? Seems to be hiding.

Sadly Hiro is like too many Japanese, they just blindly follow what their govt does to THEM & ACCEPT it as shoganai........like others I have long since stopped caring, if Japanese do not care & most sadly DONT, then why should i.

The economy ministry said that as of July 20, it had received 2.9 million applications from small businesses and distributed funds to 2.67 million; Service Design said that for the most part, funds are being paid out roughly two weeks after an application is received.

I don't like Dentsu or middlemen in general, but 90% of applicants getting paid already and about two weeks after applying is better than the way the 100,000 yen per citizen has been handled by local governments. I applied for this myself and got it within ten days of applying. The 100,000 per family member took over a month to get the form and then a further month to be approved, and that was with no income documents or the like to check.

I don't know what commissions were taken and I don't like the lack of transparency, but its good that the job of making the payments is being done.

@moonbloom now that is proper reporting, you're never getting a press pass with such reaseach or truth. Good job.

Not good.

There is a clear absence of independent oversight, or any governance framework.

If any Government agency assigned the responsibility to award contracts to distribute more than 2 trillion yen to aid businesses affected by this pandemic, then from day one accountability and transparency in the decision-making process in awarding the right contract to the best contractor in paramount.

A clear path indicating which decision makers are answerable/accountable to the shareholders/taxpayers.

Another area is disclosure. In this case the lack of.

Budget transparency ……best practice…..

https://www.oecd.org/gov/budgeting/best-practices-budget-transparency.htm

Sorry, no regulatory policy was implemented,  not just incompetent, it is unethical.

At last, the Japanese PEOPLE are waking up.

There demands to be an effective opposition to this ruling Government, to maintain and uphold checks and balances.

The ministry has set up a third-party panel to review how it awards public contracts and make recommendations on increasing transparency, it said.

After awarding contracts to distribute more than 2 trillion yen.

No more panels.

A judge led full independent public inquiry, that can have Ministry officials, bureaucrats, every party, vested interest involved in this sorry saga testify under oath. Nothing less will suffice.     

@Cricky

Thnx.

I tried to alert my uni students about it in (a class that had as its main objective doing in-depth research to better understand domestic/world events), and was told by ex-pat admin (UK & US) that it was not acceptable.

lol.

Glad I've moved on from there.

Why is everybody anti Abe? At least Suga cares about our dear leader.

Why blame Abe? You think he doesn't want it to work? Anyone with a brain knows that the whole country is watching this money. Unlike most other countries, Japan is very strict when it come to transparency of where money end up. Abe needed this to work to gain public support and he need it to save the companies in Japan to revive the economy. He isn't stupid. Problem is that everyone involved was to blame. Is not about corruption but more about incompetence. The project was too huge and no one was able to carry it out of it's own so they wanted to divide the work. But something like this never happen before in Japan so they are inexperience. I would blame everyone for their lack of cooperation and speed. I don't get why every time something goes wrong, people had to blame one person when the thing is not even in his hands. Ignorance and lack of understanding how the structure works is the problem. Do you think Abe want his support rating to keep falling and he is doing it intentional? Of course not. The man isn't god. He can't handle nor has the power every details of how the government works.

And don't praise US so much when you don't even know how bad currently it is there. Unemployment there is through the roof and social unrest is at it's highest peak. Their economy is 10times more in troubles than ours after all this is over. You have no idea how bad it is there and how many are dying everyday.

There are no allegations of illegality in the process.

so what is the issue?