Abe vows efforts to ensure transparency of state land deals

November 29, 2017

TOKYO- Tokyo, Nov. 29 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, during a grilling in parliament over a shady state land deal, pledged Wednesday to review procedures for selling land plots out of the government's holdings in order to ensure their transparency.

"As state-owned land plots are assets shared by Japanese people, there should never be doubts over them," Abe told the Budget Committee of the House of Councillors, the upper chamber of parliament.

Abe's administration has been under fire for its alleged favoritism toward school operator Moritomo Gakuen, by selling the land in question at 134 million yen, some 800 million yen lower than its appraisal value.

At the committee's meeting, Kohei Otsuka, president of the opposition Democratic Party, asked the prime minister to promise to conduct a review of the procedures taken by the government in the sale of the land plot in Toyonaka, Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, to Moritomo at such a huge discount for the construction of an elementary school.

The request came after a senior Finance Ministry official, at a Tuesday's meeting of the Budget Committee of the House of Representatives, the lower chamber, admitted giving special treatment to Moritomo over the land sale deal in question, including signing with the school operator a rare fixed-term lease contract for the land on the premise of eventually selling it to the institution.

"The Finance Ministry has said that it takes the matter seriously," Abe said. "That means the ministry will properly examine where problems existed."

Regarding the Japanese Defense Ministry's decision to procure F-35A stealth fighters under the U.S. government's Foreign Military Sales, or FMS, program, Otsuka claimed that the program is "unreasonably advantageous to the United States" and that Japanese companies' involvement in the fighters' production has not been adequately promoted.

Abe insisted that the deal is necessary for defending Japan's security as it allows the country to procure equipment with high military confidentiality, as well as cutting-edge instruments that only the United States can manufacture.

Ahead of a question-and-answer session at the committee meeting, Board of Audit President Teruhiko Kawato reported the results of the board's probe of the state land sale to Moritomo, which showed that the state had failed to carry out necessary research and examinations.

The board conducted the probe following a request from the Upper House committee in March under Article 105 of the Diet law. Jiji Press

Yasunori Kagoike, front left, former head of scandal-tainted school operator Moritomo Gakuen, answers questions from the media near his home in Toyonaka in Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, Thursday, July 27, 2017. The Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office questioned Yasunori Kagoike and his wife, Junko, on Thursday on suspicion of defrauding the central and Osaka prefectural governments of subsidies. Jiji Press