Aso modifies criticism of news reports on document tampering

March 31, 2018

Tokyo- Japanese Minister of Finance Taro Aso on Friday modified his remarks critical of domestic media reports about his ministry's falsifications of documents related to a controversial discount sale of state land to school operator Moritomo Gakuen.

At a House of Councillors Financial Affairs Committee meeting on Thursday, Aso criticized Japanese media for giving the Ministry of Finance's document falsifications giving greater coverage than a new Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement, which was recently signed by Japan and 10 other countries.

On Friday, Aso told the same committee that it was not good to compare the Moritomo scandal with the TPP 11.

At a press conference earlier in the day, however, Aso said that he is not familiar with Japanese newspaper reports as he intends to refrain from reading them, but that the TPP 11 did not get much coverage.

The MOF has admitted that unidentified ministry bureaucrats doctored documents related to the sale of a state-owned land plot to Moritomo Gakuen, which was once linked to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's wife, Akie, and is one of school operators at the center of favoritism allegations against the prime minister.

"Japanese newspapers consider the Moritomo scandal to be more serious than the TPP 11," Aso told he Upper House meeting on Thursday, adding that "this is the level of Japanese newspapers."

Aso said the TPP 11 was concluded at Japan's initiative. He also claimed that although Japanese economic revitalization minister Toshimitsu Motegi visited Peru on a four-day round trip for the TPP, this did not get a single line in Japanese newspapers.

The 11 countries signed the TPP in the Chilean capital of Santiago on March 8, but have yet to conclude domestic approval procedures.

Motegi visited Chile, not Peru, to sign the TPP. The signing was covered by Japanese media. Jiji Press