Kake Apologizes to Ehime Pref. over “Wrong” Meeting Info

May 31, 2018

Matsuyama, Ehime Pref.- A senior official of Kake Educational Institution visited the Ehime prefectural government Thursday to apologize for giving "wrong" information related to a high-profile favoritism scandal in Japan.

"We deeply apologize for causing the prefecture great troubles," Yoshihito Watanabe, the Kake official, told senior Ehime official Makifumi Nishimoto at the prefectural office in Matsuyama, the capital of the western Japan prefecture.

It is deplorable that the Kake group last week released a statement denying an alleged 2015 meeting between Kake group leader Kotaro Kake and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, without prior notice to the Ehime government, Nishimoto said.

"We take it seriously that wrong information was conveyed to the prefecture," Nishimoto also said. He met Watanabe on behalf of Governor Tokihiro Nakamura, who is on a business trip to Taiwan.

According to documents produced by the Ehime government, the Kake group told the Ehime side that Abe praised the group's plan to set up a veterinary school in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, during his meeting with Kake on Feb. 25, 2015.

Speaking to reporters, Watanabe said, "I guess I made the remark (about Abe's support), in hopes of bringing the plan into reality."

He denied making the remark at the instruction of Kake.

In the statement released Saturday, the Kake group claimed to have given wrong information to the Ehime and Imabari governments by reporting about a nonexistent meeting between its leader and the prime minister.

Abe and Kake are long-time friends. The group opened a university veterinary medicine faculty in a national strategic special zone for deregulation in Imabari in April, the first such university department in the country in over 50 years.

On Thursday, Watanabe also visited the Imabari government office to apologize. Jiji Press