Japan Press Weekly

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2016 November 16 - 22 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Chairperson of Miyagi Prefectural Assembly resigns over money scandal

Miyagi Prefectural Assembly chairperson Nakayama Koichi (Liberal Democratic Party) on November 21 held a news conference in Sendai City and announced his resignation from the post over the misuse of political affairs allowances. In June this year, Nakayama’s predecessor, also from the LDP, resigned for the same reason.

In fiscal 2015, Nakayama paid for substitute-driver services 33 times with his political affairs allowances. In 31 cases, he received blank receipts from a single service provider and entered sums padded by nearly 50,000 yen in total.

Nakayama explained that in some cases “his wife” entered the wrong sums on the slips. Asked about how he came to receive blank receipts from the provider, he said, “It was the way we conducted business.”

Endo Ikuko, leader of the Japanese Communist Party prefectural assemblypersons’ group, pointed out that this issue cannot be resolved by just resigning as chairperson because this is related to the qualities required of a legislator. She went on to stress that the LDP’s responsibility for the successive money scandals needs to be called into question.