Catastrophic failure of government in Osaka

This is an entry about 965 government employees falsifying records in Osaka, along with my opinion about that.

News article:

2007/06/29 965 Osaka city employees to be suspended, The Yomiuri Shimbun; "The Osaka municipal government has decided to suspend 965 employees for a month for falsifying their academic qualifications to take an employment exam for non-college graduates, and reprimanded and reduced the salaries of 80 others who failed to pay taxes and other expenses. The punitive action against Osaka municipal government employees is the second largest following measures taken against 7,924 employees in 2005 for falsifying overtime allowances by padding working hours and other means. The municipal government will divide the suspension period in two, as penalizing such a large number of employees will affect its operations. Therefore, the municipal government will suspend 404 employees in July and 561 in August. As Osaka Mayor Junichi Seki has said that the municipal government as an organization was not responsible for the scandal, he is unlikely to question the responsibility of officials to supervise their subordinates."

Comment: 2007/06/29 -- Let's get this straight, nearly one thousand people working in the Osaka government falsified records. Okay, now let's think about this, what do most people do in the government ... well most of them keep records. So now we have nearly a thousand people, probably many of them record keepers, who have falsified their own records so that they could take and pass a test, which probably gave them a salary increase.
Talk about a catastrophic failure of government. The entire government should come crumbling down and people should be yelling for special elections for a new municipal government. Instead, the mayor says, "not my fault" and that he will do ... sh ... don't say it too loud ...
absolutely nothing.
Okay, well I guess in comparison to the previous scandal of 7,924 employees falsifying overtime records this scandal is only 1/8 the size. So, you know, well ... I mean ...[shrug]
You get the government you deserve.
Please do me a favor if you live in the municipal of Osaka. Next time you go to a ward office and someone there gives you a hard time, stare them in the eyes and ask them if they were one of the people who padded their overtime or falsified their academic qualifications.