The Board of Audit, which examines how the national budget was spent, compiled a report for the last fiscal year and pointed out that a total of more than 220 billion yen of inappropriate expenditures were found in projects related to the new coronavirus countermeasures.
The Board of Audit's inspection report on last year's budget was submitted to Prime Minister Kishida by President Hajime Okamura on July 7.
The total amount of money that was pointed out in the report as unreasonable expenditures or the need for improvement amounted to more than 333 billion yen in 580 cases, of which 9 projects conducted by nine ministries and agencies related to the new coronavirus countermeasures were pointed out to be more than 87 billion yen.
Specifically, more than 220.112 billion yen has already been revealed for projects related to the distribution of goods through the "Temporary Grant for Regional Revitalization" for local governments working on infection control measures, and more than 34.5 billion yen for environmental improvement projects in areas where Internet access is difficult.
In addition, it was newly pointed out that approximately 4000 million yen was overspent in subsidies from the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare to support the development of prefectural medical care delivery systems, etc., due to expenditures that exceeded the upper limit of the subsidy amount or were not eligible.
On the other hand, in relation to the new coronavirus, we are also investigating the "sustainability benefit," which was the largest support measure in fiscal 2020 alone, with expenditures of more than 5.5000 trillion yen, and we checked the status of income tax returns extracted from 2020.263 million sole proprietors who received benefits by 8900.
As a result, nearly 5% of the approximately <>,<> people do not seem to have recorded the amount of their benefits as income, and the Board of Audit believes that there are a certain number of cases where the tax has not been paid properly.
Commenting on the report, Dr. Okamura said, "Based on socio-economic trends and the current state of public finances, we have pointed out and raised issues from multiple perspectives, including matters of high public interest.