TOKYO: Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan called on Monday for an overhaul of the nuclear power industry after the Fukushima disaster, likening tacit agreements between power companies and officials to the military's actions plunging Japan into World War Two.
Kan, prime minister when an earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima plant last year, also told a parliamentary inquiry that the disaster had exposed the ills of Japanese society - like Chernobyl before it had laid bare the fundamental problems of Soviet communism.
"Before the war, the military took control of politics," Kan said during nearly three hours of testimony to the packed hearing on the government's response to the disaster at the plant run by Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco.
"In a similar way, Tepco and the power companies federation took control of the governance of nuclear power gradually in the past 40 years and experts, politicians and bureaucrats who were critical were shut out of the decision making."
Kan invoked former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's comments in his autobiography about how the 1986 Chernobyl disaster had reflected failings of the communist era.
"The Fukushima disaster is similar. It shines a light on the root of our ailments," Kan said.
The government, he said, had to take responsibility because it had promoted nuclear power and allowed the groups running it to become so powerful.
"To fully expose and destroy the organisational setup and social-psychological structure, which resembles that of the pre-war military, is the first step toward a drastic reform of the governance of nuclear power," Kan said.
He urged the current government to allow foreign experts to be part of discussions on a new regulator, which had been due to start operations in April, but has been held up by wrangling in parliament.
Weakened by perceived mis-steps after the disaster, Kan stepped down as prime minister in September 2011 and made way for Yoshihiko Noda - the sixth prime minister in five years.
Kan has repeatedly apologised for the government's role in the aftermath of the accident, in which three of Fukushima's six reactors underwent meltdowns. He has called for Japan to end its reliance on nuclear power.
Nuclear power accounted for about 30 percent of Japan's electricity supply before the disaster and all 50 reactors have been shut down for maintenance. None has been restarted because of concerns about safety.
Tens of thousands were evacuated after the March 11 quake and tsunami, their livelihoods destroyed, with little prospect of returning to their contaminated homes and land.
It was the second time a nuclear power station had been damaged in a natural disaster in Japan after Tepco's Kashiwazaki Kariwa plant leaked radiation following a nearby quake in 2007.
Tepco admitted to covering up safety lapses for decades after that incident and reshuffled its top management. Last week, the company said the radiation release from Fukushima's meltdowns was more than twice initial estimates.
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