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4TH LD: Farm minister apologizes over U.S. beef import resumption+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, Jan. 30_(Kyodo) _ (EDS: UDPATING WITH LATEST DEVELOPMENT) Farm minister Shoichi Nakagawa apologized Monday in the Diet for the government's failure to keep its promise to send officials to check U.S. beef processors prior to resuming U.S. beef imports last month, prompting the opposition camp to demand that he quit. But the agriculture, forestry and fisheries minister rejected the resignation call, and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe defended Nakagawa's position and only deplored the government's failure to "fully explain" a change in the inspection plan to parliament. The House of Representatives Budget Committee session ran late into the night after being disrupted twice over Nakagawa's remarks, delaying the planned passage Monday of a fiscal 2005 extra budget through the lower house until Tuesday. Nakagawa admitted earlier in the session that the government did not carry out the promised checks in response to an opposition lawmaker's questions over Japan's recent ban on U.S. beef imports, which was reinstated over renewed safety concerns only a month after the imports had been resumed. Although Nakagawa admitted responsibility, he later said, "It is my responsibility to ensure the effectiveness of the U.S. export program" as farm minister. Nakagawa also said that in his earlier remarks he meant to apologize for the government's "insufficient account" to parliament about the change in the inspection plan. The government postponed the dispatch of officials to the United States as it was found that inspections before a resumption of the beef imports would be impractical, Nakagawa said. After Tokyo reopened the Japanese market to North American beef on Dec. 12, its inspection team left the following day to the United States and the first batch of resumed U.S. exports arrived in Japan on Dec. 16, Abe said. But opposition lawmakers saw problems in the change in a plan the government pledged in a document submitted to parliament upon formal Cabinet approval. The document on the planned on-site inspection was rendered Nov. 18. While the opposition criticized the import resumption for being premature, the government has so far blamed only the United States for the recent shipment of beef to Japan that contained risky parts banned in Japan due to concerns over mad cow disease. Nakagawa's failure to convince opposition lawmakers of his accounts caused members of the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan and the Social Democratic Party to walk out of the session in protest, leading to its first recess of more than five hours in the afternoon. DPJ President Seiji Maehara told reporters that the main opposition party intends to demand that Nakagawa be dismissed. But Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiji Suzuki, speaking to a press conference, denied any state responsibility, without elaborating. Nakagawa said he was the one who made the decision not to realize the prior inspections as Washington had offered Tokyo to double-check its exports and because it had turned out to be impractical for Tokyo to try to check the processors' safety compliance before they started the shipments. He also said Japan's Food Safety Commission did not require prior checks for giving its go-ahead on Dec. 8 to reopen the market. The Diet session was resumed around 7 p.m. but it was again disrupted as opposition lawmakers were not satisfied with Nakagawa's explanations. On Dec. 12, Japan lifted its two-year ban on U.S. beef imports imposed following the discovery there of mad cow disease -- a brain-wasting illness formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy -- in December 2003. But it halted the imports on Jan. 20 after detecting a bovine spine, a material banned in Japan as a mad cow disease risk, in an airlifted U.S. beef shipment at Narita airport. The lower house committee was convened to vote in the afternoon on a government-proposed supplementary budget for the current year through March 31. The 4.52 trillion yen extra budget, designed to finance government measures to deal with recent social issues such as asbestos, was originally planned to pass the lower house during Monday and clear the legislature at a House of Councillors plenary session Thursday. The committee was also held to approve several bills including one to give relief to victims of asbestos-induced health problems who have not been covered by workers' injury compensation. |