MOF Report Hints Internal Action Triggered by Abe’s Remarks on Moritomo Scandal

June 5, 2018

Tokyo- A Japanese Ministry of Finance investigation report on the MOF's tampering and scrapping of documents related to the controversial discount state land sale to a school operator suggested Monday that senior MOF officials took a course of action following Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's remarks over the matter, although the ministry ruled out such consideration.

At a press conference on Monday, Deputy Vice Minister of Finance Koji Yano insisted that there was no "sontaku" consideration for the prime minister or people close to him behind the manipulation and scrapping of the MOF documents related to the deal, in which the land lot in the city of Toyonaka in Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, was sold to Moritomo Gakuen at 134 million yen, at a discount of as much as about 800 million yen, in June 2016.

Sontaku is a Japanese term meaning that someone acts to meet the interest of his or her boss or others by voluntarily reading the situation around them.

Meanwhile, the MOF investigation report showed that Minoru Nakamura, director of the Planning and Administration Division of the MOF Financial Bureau, checked whether there were any related documents mentioning Abe's wife, Akie, at the bureau or the ministry's Kinki Local Finance Bureau, which covers Osaka and nearby prefectures, after Abe said in the Diet, the country's parliament, in February 2017 that he would resign if he or his wife had been involved in the controversial discount land sale.

Nakamura later reported his findings to then Financial Bureau chief Nobuhisa Sagawa, and sensed Sagawa's implicit instructions to destroy such documents.

Moritomo Gakuen planned to open an elementary school on the land, but withdrew the plan after the questionable land deal came to light in February 2017. Akie Abe was once appointed honorary principal of the elementary school.

The name of the first lady was cited in several sections of related ministry documents, before they were removed following the revelation of the land deal.

At the news conference, Minister of Finance Taro Aso stressed that the internal investigation did not confirm that the tampering was motivated by a sense of alarm over the references to the first lady.

Aso also stated that the document manipulation was not an organizational attempt by the MOF although the ministry the same day announced punishments for a total of 20 former and incumbent officials, including Sagawa, over the scandal.

"The former Financial Bureau chief decided" on the document manipulation, the minister stressed. "We punished the former Financial Bureau chief."

As Sagawa resigned as commissioner of the National Tax Agency in March this year, the ministry will reduce 5.13 million yen from his retirement benefit of 49.99 million yen. Nakamura will be suspended from duty for one month.

Aso will voluntarily return his salary as a cabinet minister for 12 months, or 1.7 million yen, while reiterating his intention of not stepping down from the post.

The ministry has claimed that the alterations were carried out to make the documents consistent with Sagawa's explanations on the land deal before the Diet.

Asked why the documents were altered while Sagawa's parliamentary remarks in question were left uncorrected, Aso said, "To be honest, I don't know."

As a possible reason, the investigation report suggested that ministry officials were exhausted at the time due to work to prepare answers to questions from opposition lawmakers about the Moritomo scandal. Jiji Press