TOKYO- Japanese Vice Defense Minister Tetsuro Kuroe will resign over the cover-up of daily reports from Ground Self-Defense Force engineering troops in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in South Sudan, informed sources said Thursday.

The government is working to replace Kuroe, the top bureaucrat at the Defense Ministry, with Katashi Toyota, director-general of the defense minister's Secretariat, according to the sources.

GSDF Chief of Staff Gen. Toshiya Okabe is also seen stepping down over the cover-up scandal.

On Friday, the ministry is slated to release the results of a special investigation by its Inspector General's Office of Legal Compliance into the cover-up, as well as punishments for those involved in the maneuvering.

The focal point is now whether the investigation report will mention Defense Minister Tomomi Inada's alleged involvement in the scandal.

Inada has repeatedly denied before parliament that she was informed of the discovery of the South Sudan reports, which the GDSF initially said had been scrapped.

However, the GSDF side has claimed during the special investigation that it notified Inada of the discovery, according to informed sources.

In response to a request last October to disclose the South Sudan daily activity logs, after the security situation worsened in the strife-torn African nation, the GSDF said in December that the activity logs had been discarded.

But in January this year, the documents were found to be kept in electronic form within the GSDF. In February, Kuroe, Okabe and other officials agreed that there was no need to make public the existence of the documents, a Defense Ministry source said.

Okabe is expected to step down over allegations of a cover-up of daily logs on troop operations in South Sudan, government officials said Wednesday.

The Defense Ministry is considering releasing the outcome of its special investigation into the allegations on Friday, the sources said.

Together with the outcome of the probe, the ministry is considering announcing disciplinary measures against officials concerned, including Okabe, the sources said.

During questions in parliament and on other occasions, Inada has said she had never approved the idea of keeping the logs undisclosed.

The GSDF has told ministry investigators that Inada had been informed that the data were stored.

On March 16, Inada ordered the investigation. The minister herself was questioned as part of the probe last week. (Jiji Press)