Ministry mistakenly fails to pay pension benefits

September 14, 2017

TOKYO- Japan's welfare ministry said Wednesday the "kyosai nenkin" pension program mainly for government employees mistakenly failed to pay 59.8 billion yen of add-on benefits, a record amount of nonpayment by the program.

The ministry will inform the 105,963 recipients not awarded the proper amounts, mainly spouses of retired public servants, via the Japan Pension Service and pay them the money in mid-November.

The massive nonpayment was due to lack of coordination between the Japan Pension Service and the kyosai nenkin pension association.

The problem was discovered during wholesale checks from December last year to August this year, after the kyosai nenkin program merged with the "kosei nenkin" pension program for corporate employees in October 2015.

To prevent any recurrence, the ministry will carry out computer system upgrades to automate the data-matching process between the Japan Pension Service and the kyosai nenkin program.

Subject to the add-on benefits, which come on top of the regular benefits from the basic pensions, are mainly households with full-time housewives. The unpaid amount averaged 560,000 yen per head.

The maximum unpaid amount for one person came to 5.9 million yen, accumulated over more than two decades from May 1991, when the additional benefits were established, to May this year.

Unpaid benefits to some 4,000 recipients who are already dead will be paid to bereaved families.

At a news conference, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the nonpayment is "a big problem," urging the Japan Pension Service to make necessary payments swiftly and take preventive steps.

Kazunori Yamanoi, parliamentary affairs head of the main opposition Democratic Party, said the disclosed nonpayment cases may be just "the tip of an iceberg." He requested the government to conduct thorough investigations. Jiji Press