How does JCP manage its political funds?

As the government issued the 2001 report on political funds on September 13, Ueda Hitoshi, Japanese Communist Party Finance and Management Bureau director, explained the JCP funds in an interview with Akahata. He said:

The JCP accepted neither donations by companies and organizations nor subsidies by the government from tax money, and the JCP income stood mainly on party membership dues, sales and subscription fees of organ papers and magazines, and personal donations from party members and supporters.

The JCP Central Committee's total income in 2001 was about 34.29 billion yen (y/y 104.6%) and total expenditure of about 34.95 billion yen (y/y 102.9%). (see Table.2)

Profits from party activities, such as sales of Akahata and other organ periodicals, accounted for 85.1% of total income and cost of such activities absorbed 58.5% of total spending.

The budget for the construction of the JCP headquarters buildings is 8.5 billion yen in total. About half of that, including 2.6-billion yen was of contributions from people, was allotted for the first round of the construction ending last July.

A series of politics-for-money scandals fortify the JCP's consistent call to ban political donations from business enterprises and other organizations.

Walking together with the people, the JCP has a sound policy for funding and will exert itself to play a bigger role in the political field. (end)