JCP reveals details of misuse of 'state secret funds'

The Japanese Communist Party took many politicians by surprise by revealing details of the use of the Cabinet Secretariat's questionable "secret funds."

JCP Chair Shii Kazuo held a news conference on April 12 to announce that the JCP obtained a copy of a cashbook and other related documents that show how 143 billion yen (about 1.1 billion dollars) was misused by the prime minister's office.

The ledgers cover the period between November 1991 and December 1992, when Kato Koichi, who recently resigned from the Diet to take responsibility for his former aide's fraud, was chief cabinet secretary under Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi.

"Secret funds" are money that a chief cabinet secretary can use without restrictions.

Shii said that a JCP investigation led him to believe that the descriptions in the documents are accurate.

The documents includes: (1) a cashbook covering the Nov. 1991-Dec. 1992 period; (2) a list of monthly revenue and expenditure; and (3) a classified list of uses of the funds. The Cabinet secretariat's letterhead was used for the latter two.

The 143 billion yen is entered at one million yen as one unit with one exception, and most of them are from the chief cabinet secretary.

For example, about 3.56 million yen was used to buy business suits for Komei Party Dietmembers in charge of Diet steering and 11.7 million yen for suits for 39 Liberal Democratic Party's executive board members, indicating that the "secret funds" were used to ease tensions between the ruling LDP and opposition parties (which do not include the JCP) and inner LDP rivalries, to make government-proposed legislation easier.

"Funds for politicians" were used to buy tickets for politicians' fundraisers, publication celebrations, and symposiums, which were de facto political donations, said the JCP chair.

"Private purposes" includes the costs for maintaining offices, payments of allowances to cabinet clerks, and Kato's visit to his constituency as chief cabinet secretary (2.54 million yen). "This is nothing less than the privatization of tax money," Shii emphasized.

He said, "All these documents suggest no item in the 'secret funds' was appropriate.

In light of the government statement that the "secret funds" are aimed at the smooth execution of Japan's domestic and foreign policies, the government is unaccountable, he said.

Explaining the aim of the JCP revelation, Shii stressed that a "cleanup"of Japanese politics is a matter of urgency. Successive LDP governments are responsible for wasting tax money by using it to the partisan benefit. Such a system, a hotbed of political corruption, must be eliminated, Shii said.

Shii requested that the Prime Minister make public all records of the use of the "secret funds," promise to stop using them to the benefit of political parties or politicians, and investigate the transfer of the Foreign Ministry "secret funds" to the Cabinet Secretariat. He called on the Diet to establish a special committee to investigate the matter.

Commenting on the JCP revelation, Prime Minister Koizumi said that he doesn't remember anything about his alleged receipt of 500,000 yen as a parting gift. Chief Cabinet Secretary Fukuda Yasuo said that the matter is too grave to comment on, and Komei Party Secretary General Fuyushiba Tetsuzo rejected to offer a comment. (end)