| From The Newspaper (5) Card |
October 20, 2022
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| "Deadline for 'My Number Point' was extended ~Application limit is at the end of December." The news article read that the General Affairs Minister announced at a press conference on the 20th that the due date to apply for 'My Number Card' was extended from the end of September to the end of December. 'My Number Card' holders can apply for 'My Number Point' ~which can be used for shopping, which is worth up to 20,000 yen. As of September 15th, there were 66.85 million holders. This is 53.1% of all citizens in the country. The Minister said that driver license holders were 81 million so he wanted to increase the number of 'My Number Card' holders to 80 million by the end of the year. The article mentioned about the details of the 20,000 yen. 5,000 yen for people who newly get the card; 7,500 yen for people who add one's Health Insurance Certificate to the card; 7,500 yen for people who add one's bank account number for deposits from the government. The article explained about the card itself: [My Number Card] A card that has a 12 digit individual number (My Number) for all the citizens in the  country, a facial photo, name, address, and other information, which has an IC chip inside. It can be used as an ID card; to identify the holder in submission of administrative documents online; to issue a resident registration certificate at a convenience store; to add a Health Insurance Card function. Getting the card is voluntary, but, as the base of the Digital Society, the government made a target that almost all residents should have it by the end of March of the next year. He got this card several years ago, but he has never used it, only filling in the number into his tax declaration form. He understands why this card hasn't spread: because there is no merit. But, from last year or so, the government suddenly started to boost this program. There is a reason. Naturally, this country's implementation of policies is slow. The 'Digital Society' idea was spoken about in governmental circles a long time ago. In the 'Digital Society', people are able to get services speedily and with less effort. People and companies wouldn't need to go to governmental offices, and wait. Traffic jams would be less. You could get your health records from anywhere. But, the Digital Society hadn't yet come. And, now it's here. When the COVID-19 pandemic started, there was a shortage of masks, and the Prime Minister came up with the idea to deliver gauze masks to each citizen, and ordered his subordinates to put the plan into action. But, he didn't know that it was not that simple. The federal government didn't have all the data of the citizens in the country. Income tax is paid through employees' companies. Land tax and health insurance fees are paid through municipalities. And each municipality uses a different computer system/software to register their citizens' information. If the federal government was more centralized, it could have made a unified system and supplied it to all 1,718 municipalities, which would have linked all the municipal governments to the federal government to streamline the flow of information. The government couldn't ask each municipality to deliver masks because municipalities couldn't afford to do it because of COVID-19, taking care of patients, screening for Covid cases and protecting from contracting Covid. So, the government asked Japan Post to deliver the masks. But, Japan Post only knew each building's address and owner. So, they could only post a set of two gauze masks to each post. So, a company with a hundred workers received two masks, while a household with five family members would receive two masks. People forgot about this blunder because good quality unwoven masks flooded the market soon afterwards. But, the next problem occurred. The government decided to pay 100,000 yen to each household. This time the government succeeded in asking each municipality to assist in the distribution of the funds. But, each municipality didn't know their residents' bank accounts. So they had a hard time doing this. This time, the government has finally realized how important being a part of the Digital Society is. |
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No. 492
*up to :まで
*as of :時点で
* deposit :預金、振込金
*voluntary :任意
*declaration :申告
*boost :加速させる
*centralize :中央に集める
*streamline :効率化する
*blunder :失策、不手際