Japan To Pay Every Citizen Ksh 93,000 To Cushion Them Against Covid-19

Japan is planning to respond and cushion its citizens against the adverse effects of Covid-19 by paying each one of them up to 100,000 yen (93,000 shillings).

The Japanese Government said the money will be sent to every citizen regardless of their income deviating from its original proposal which suggested that only qualified households that had lost income during the pandemic would be funded.

Earlier on, the proposal of paying only affected households up to 300,000 yen was met with strong criticism prompting the government to withdraw and come up with a more reasonable scheme.

In a meeting involving the Coronavirus taskforce held on Thursday, April 16, 2020, the Japan Prime Minister said the Chinese Government was coming up with measures that would benefit more people in the country.

According to reports from various sources, the ruling Government changed the proposal to a more accommodative one after one of the parties named Komeito, the smaller party in the Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition threatened to support a proposal made by the opposition party.

Komeito argued that the earlier proposal was met by a poor public reception and asked the Government to focus on the latter proposal even though the government later decided to go with both plans.

Komeito’s proposal was added weight by LDP Secretary-General who advised the Government to give the money to everyone and not only the hardest hit households.

“There are urgent calls for proposals such as 100,000 yen payments to everyone,” Nikai said. “I strongly urge the government to take action quickly on what it can do.”

Giving the citizens 100,000 will cost the Chinese government up to 12 trillion yen which is about 111 billion dollars.

The proposal will also force the Chinese government to review its budget upwards from its initial 16.8 trillion yen.

Hitherto, Japan has reported 9,231 cases of covid-19 cases with 190 deaths and 935 recoveries.