Local News

The new governor of Kumamoto Prefecture, Ikuo Urashima, submitted a bill to an extraordinary session of the prefectural legislature to cut the governor’s monthly salary by one million yen, or 80.6%, to 240,000 per month, which was adopted. This far exceeds the recent 30% salary reduction of the governor of Kochi Prefecture, and it is now the lowest prefecture governor’s salary in the nation. The governor made this reduction a campaign promise, saying it was necessary for the governor to have the same perspective as the prefecture’s citizens. The reduction will stay in effect until the strategy to rebuild the prefecture’s finances is implemented by next March.