Tokyo

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday promised to make efforts to restore public trust hurt by two ministers’ resignations late last month, less than two months after the latest cabinet reshuffle.

At a House of Representatives Budget Committee meeting, Abe also said the government will develop a university entrance examination system that does not cause regional or economic inequalities, after it postponed the use of private-sector English tests, previously set to start in fiscal 2020, amid concerns about such inequalities.

Abe was speaking before the Diet, the country’s parliament, for the first time since then industry minister Isshu Sugawara and then Justice Minister Katsuyuki Kawai resigned, on Oct. 25 and 31, respectively.

“I keenly feel responsible as the one who appointed them,” Abe said. “We’ll make efforts to restore public trust by resolving problems one by one in each administrative field.”

“I appointed them from the standpoint of putting the right people in the right jobs,” he said. “I want to apologize to the public for the consequences.”

Opposition Democratic Party for the People lawmaker Shu Watanabe urged Abe, in his capacity as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, to tell Sugawara and Kawai to give full explanations over their money scandals.

“I believe they will fulfil their accountability,” Abe answered.

On the postponed use of private-sector English tests for university admissions, Abe vowed to “have the matter fully considered under education minister Koichi Haguida, in order to clear the problems raised so far.”

The postponement came after Haguida himself fueled the inequality controversy by saying on television that students would hopefully make efforts based on their backgrounds. He has retracted the remark and apologized for it.

Jiji Press