Ruling bloc wants minority to report on Moritomo papers by Thurs.

March 7, 2018

Tokyo- Japan's ruling parties agreed Wednesday to ask the Finance Ministry to report to parliament by Thursday the results of its probe into the alleged alterations of documents on a controversial sale of state-owned land to private school operator Moritomo Gakuen.

The agreement was reached in talks among secretaries-general and parliamentary affairs chiefs of the Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito.

After the talks, Hiroshi Moriyama, LDP parliamentary affairs chief, met with Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasutoshi Nishimura and conveyed the ruling camp's plan to request the reporting.

The Finance Ministry has not clarified whether the allegations are true, claiming that it cannot immediately examine all of the documents under suspicion because they are subject to an ongoing investigation following a criminal complaint filed with public prosecutors.

The ministry is expected to face a tough decision now that not only the opposition camp but also the ruling parties are stepping up demands for the results of its probe into the suspected document alterations.

The suspicion was raised by the Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun, which reported on Friday that documents prepared by the ministry between 2015 and 2016 about the heavily discounted sale of the land in Osaka Prefecture and their copies shown to lawmakers later had differences in content.

"The ministry needs to make all-out efforts to conduct investigations and hearings as quickly as possible," Moriyama told reporters after his meeting with other senior ruling party officials.

Yoshinori Oguchi, parliamentary affairs chief of Komeito, said: "Now is the time when the Finance Ministry should do what it should be doing. We'll set a deadline."

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference, "Based on the request from the ruling parties, we'll have the Finance Ministry respond properly."

Meanwhile, parliamentary affairs chiefs of six opposition parties, including the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Party of Hope, held a meeting on Wednesday morning and confirmed their plan to demand the government submit the original documents under suspicion, or those before being altered, by using the investigation powers granted to parliament.

CDPJ parliamentary affairs chief Kiyomi Tsujimoto conveyed the plan to LDP's Moriyama.

According to Tsujimoto, Moriyama said the ruling camp will likely seek the submission of copies of the documents if they are kept at the ministry's Kinki Local Finance Bureau in Osaka. Jiji Press