New paper emerges over kake scandal, suggests link with Abe

April 11, 2018

Tokyo- A new document emerged Tuesday over a cronyism scandal involving Kake Educational Institution, saying its plan to open a university veterinary school in Imabari, Ehime Prefecture, was a matter related to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In its Tuesday morning edition, the Asahi Shimbun daily reported that the Ehime prefectural government produced a document on an April 2, 2015, meeting between Tadao Yanase, then executive secretary to Abe, and officials of the prefectural and Imabari city governments at the prime minister's office in Tokyo.

In the document, dated April 13, 2015, Yanase, currently vice minister for international affairs at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, is quoted as saying that the plan to open the school in a national strategic special zone in the western Japan city was a "prime minister-related matter."

Yanase issued a statement on Tuesday denying that he made such a remark. "I've never met with officials of Ehime Prefecture or Imabari as far as I can remember," he also said, as he did during a parliamentary meeting in July last year.

But later in the day, Ehime Governor Tokihiro Nakamura admitted at a press conference in Matsuyama, the capital of Ehime, that the reported document is a note made by a prefectural official who attended the meeting in question.

The governor, however, added that it has not yet been confirmed whether the document still exists, as there is no obligation to keep such paper.

Nakamura declined to comment on whether the prime minister's will was behind the government's approval for the school plan by Kake, run by an old friend of Abe.

Opening a veterinary faculty was a long-held dream of Imabari, Nakamura said, adding that Kake's application was filed following advice from the Cabinet Office to make use of the special zone program to realize the plan.

The central government approved the plan as it satisfied legal requirements and passed screenings by experts, the governor also said.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the state approval was appropriately given.

At a press conference in Tokyo, Suga also said that the central government is not aware of the document in question.

He instructed relevant government agencies, including the Cabinet Office, to conduct probes over the matter.

Meanwhile, parliamentary affairs chiefs of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and five other opposition parties agreed to demand sworn parliamentary testimony by Yanase. Jiji Press