Japan’s Finance Ministry has admitted that one of its officials asked a school operator to lie about why it received a huge discount when it bought state-owned land.
Japan’s Finance Ministry has admitted that one of its officials asked a school operator to lie about why it received a huge discount when it bought state-owned land.
The ministry sold the plot in Osaka, western Japan, to Moritomo Gakuen for a price far below its market value. It said the discount was aimed at offsetting the cost of removing buried waste. Mitsuru Ota, who heads the ministry’s bureau in charge of state-owned property, told an Upper House committee on Monday that an official in his section called Moritomo’s lawyer in February last year.
