100 million yen handed to Ozawa’s secretaries in paper bags from Mizutani Construction

Japan Press Weekly

Japan Press Service Co., Ltd. is the only news agency providing information of progressive, democratic movements in Japan

100 million yen handed to Ozawa’s secretaries in paper bags from Mizutani Construction

A person related to Mizutani Construction based in Iwate Prefecture told an Akahata reporter that paper bags containing 50 million yen were twice handed to secretaries to Ozawa Ichiro, the Democratic Party of Japan secretary general elected from the prefecture.

The company, which specializes in construction using heavy machinery, had two subcontract orders on the Isawa Dam construction project in the prefecture. The person concerned said, “As the Isawa Dam construction work was under the strong influence of the Ozawa Office, we had to take care so that the office might not obstruct our getting the subcontract orders”. The money was handed over at a hotel in Akasaka, Tokyo in October 2004 and April 2005 following the two bids.

The total of 100 million yen from Mizutani Construction was not reported in the political funds balance sheet of Rikuzankai, Ozawa’s fund-managing organization. Legally, Rikuzankai is not entitled to accept donations from corporations.

Over the suspicious donations from Mizutani Construction, Ozawa at a news conference totally denied the allegation, saying, “There is no proof of that”, and Mizutani Construction stated that they could not comment.

The year 2004 was when Rikuzankai reportedly bought a piece of land in Setagaya ward in Tokyo for approximately 340 million yen and paid for it from the 400 million yen in cash allegedly provided by Ozawa. However, the availability of this amount of money in cash at that time is not verifiable from either the publicized data on Ozawa’s personal income or Rikuzankai’s fund report.

- Akahata, January 10, 2010