Japan’s Finance Ministry proposed crafting a cover story with a school operator at the heart of a political scandal to justify a discount in the price of public land sold to the school, a ministry official said on Monday. The admission is likely to increase opposition parties’ calls for
Japan’s Finance Ministry proposed crafting a cover story with a school operator at the heart of a political scandal to justify a discount in the price of public land sold to the school, a ministry official said on Monday.
The admission is likely to increase opposition parties’ calls for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to resign over the scandal involving the sale of state-owned land to the school operator, Moritomo Gakuen, which had ties to Abe’s wife.
The affair, along with other government missteps, is clouding Abe’s chance of winning a third three-year term as leader of his Liberal Democratic Party. Victory in a September party vote would put him on track to become Japan’s longest serving premier as long as his coalition controls parliament.
« Last year, on Feb. 20, a finance bureau employee contacted Moritomo Gakuen’s lawyer… and suggested saying a lot of money was spent on the removal of rubbish and thousands of trucks were used, » Mitsuru Ota, head of the Finance Ministry’s finance bureau, told parliament.
« Moritomo’s lawyer did not take any action on this phone call. It was wrong for us to ask Moritomo Gakuen to say something that was not true, » Ota said, adding that the attempt to cook up a story was « highly embarrassing ».
