MOF exec does not deny Abe remarks behind document tampering

March 17, 2018

Tokyo- A senior Ministry of Finance official did not deny Friday that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's remarks in parliament had influenced some ministry officials to manipulate documents on a massive discount sale of a state-owned land plot.

MOF Financial Bureau Director-General Mitsuru Ota effectively revised the ministry's explanations that the manipulation was aimed at making the documents in line with answers made by his predecessor, Nobuhisa Sagawa, during parliamentary questioning on the 2016 land sale to nationalist school operator Moritomo Gakuen.

"I think the officials involved were mindful of all related parliamentary answers by the government," Ota told a meeting of the House of Councillors Budget Committee, in response to a question from Japanese Communist Party lawmaker Kotaro Tatsumi.

Tatsumi asked about the influence of Abe's declaration before parliament in February 2017 that he would resign as prime minister and as lawmaker if he or his wife, Akie, were proved to have been involved in the controversial land sale to Moritomo Gakuen, once linked to the first lady.

Ota declined to comment on any links between individual remarks in parliament and the document manipulation.

Still, he said, "I have no intention to deny or to avoid denying it (the influence)."

According to the MOF, the documents were altered between late February 2017 and April the same year.

This was after Abe made the resignation remarks in February 2017 in connection with favoritism allegations over the land sale that came to light the same month. The manipulated versions of the MOF documents were subsequently shown to lawmakers.

Abe's wife was once appointed honorary principal of an elementary school that Moritomo Gakuen planned to set up on the land plot in question in western Japan.

After the manipulation, the name of Abe's wife and related descriptions were deleted from some of the MOF documents. Jiji Press