Kake document found at agriculture ministry

April 13, 2018

Tokyo- A document over a cronyism scandal involving Kake Educational Institution, which is led by a friend of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has been found at the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, according to informed sources.

The document showed that a meeting was held in April 2015 between central government officials, including Tadao Yanase, then executive secretary to Abe, and officials of the prefectural government of Ehime over the school operator's plan to open a university faculty of animal medicine in a national strategic special zone in Imabari in the western Japan prefecture.

Yanase is currently vice minister for international affairs at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

The Asahi Shimbun, a major Japanese daily, reported Tuesday that the Ehime government produced a document on the April 2015 meeting. In the paper, Yanase is quoted as saying at the meeting that Kake's plan was a "prime minister-related matter."

At a press conference on Tuesday, Ehime Governor Tokihiro Nakamura said that the reported document is a note made by a prefectural government official who attended the meeting while noting that the prefecture was unable to find the document.

The document discovered at the agriculture ministry is believed to have been provided by the Ehime prefecture side to an official of the ministry in charge of issues related to veterinary medicine, sources familiar with the matter said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, through Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Kazuhiro Sugita, has instructed the vice ministers at the agriculture ministry, the Cabinet Office, the education ministry and the health ministry to look into whether such a document exists.

The veterinary medicine faculty of Okayama University of Science was opened earlier this month. Jiji Press