Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Parliament yesterday that original Finance Ministry records over a dubious land sale in Osaka would clear him and his wife Akie of any involvement in the deal..
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told Parliament yesterday that original Finance Ministry records over a dubious land sale in Osaka would clear him and his wife Akie of any involvement in the deal.
« I would like to make it clear that neither I nor my wife, nor even my office, had anything to do with the land transaction, » he said, adding that « a look at the documents in their pre-altered form » would show this was the case, and that he had « never ordered any alterations to be made to the documents ».
The scandal is threatening to bring down Mr Abe’s close ally, Finance Minister Taro Aso, who is also Deputy Prime Minister. Mr Aso is under fire after it emerged that Finance Ministry documents had been doctored before they were released to the public.
Mass protests calling for government accountability continued for a third day yesterday outside the Prime Minister’s Office.
At the heart of the scandal which erupted in February last year is a 8,770 sq m plot in Osaka that was sold to ultra right-wing nationalist educator Moritomo Gakuen for only 134 million yen (S$1.65 million) – one-seventh of the appraised value of 956 million yen.
A new elementary school was to be built on the site, with Mrs Abe as its honorary principal.
The issue has returned to haunt Mr Abe after the Asahi Shimbun reported earlier this month on alterations made to the documents on the land sale before they were submitted to Parliament, or the Diet.
It led to the abrupt resignation last Friday of tax chief Nobuhisa Sagawa, who had presided over the Finance Ministry bureau that oversaw the deal. The same day, news broke that a bureau official had killed himself, with media reports on Tuesday saying that he had been forced to make the changes.
A total of 14 documents contained portions that had been scrubbed. In one omission, former Moritomo director Yasunori Kagoike – who had taken Mrs Abe on a tour of the premises and briefed her about the plan – was quoted as saying she had told him: « It’s good land. Please proceed. »
On this point, Mr Abe said yesterday: « I checked with my wife and she says that she had said no such thing. My wife was neither the person in charge of establishing the school, nor was she Kagoike’s boss, and so naturally she would not have made such remarks.
