Japan Press Weekly

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2008 December 17 - 22 [POLITICS]

LDP, DPJ, and Komei party members of Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly wasted tax money on ‘study tours’ abroad

The destinations of assembly members’ overseas trips using tax money were UNESCO World Heritage sites such as Mont-Saint-Michel in France and Igguassu Falls on the border between Brazil and Argentina. They flew using business class, used limousines for travel in cities they visited, and demanded that tour conductors accompany them until late at night. The costs for their trips knew no limits. They wrote reports by plagiarizing someone’s paper.

Thirty-one Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly members from the Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Party of Japan, and the Komei Party took part in six so-called “study tours” abroad since July 2005. They spent a total of 58.64 million yen in tax money. The average amount of money each participant spent was 1.89 million yen per trip, more than double the national average of costs for local assembly members’ overseas trips.

This appalling fact came to light on December 16 in an investigation report by the Japanese Communist Party in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly.

The JCP investigation found, for example, that five LDP members of the metropolitan assembly spent 2.28 million yen each to visit Egypt, Spain, and France in December 2007. They hired luxury cars for a 12.5-hour trip for 334,000 yen to Nantes from Paris instead of using a train that would take them to the destination in just two hours. The purpose of the extensive detour was to visit Mont-Saint-Michel, which was not included in their official itinerary.

Assembly members participating in overseas study tours using tax money are required to write and submit reports on the trips to the metropolitan assembly. Komei and LDP members who took part in a tour of New York City in 2006 have been found to have plagiarized another person’s essay.

In the same way, a DPJ member used someone’s paper to write a report on his study trip to Brazil in October 2006. Surprisingly, 94 percent of its “summary” was copied word for word from an article by a Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) official.

At a news conference on the same day, the JCP Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly Members’ Group demanded that the metropolitan assembly suspend or fundamentally reconsider overseas study tours by assembly members, saying, “These are trips for pleasure. Without solving the problems of tax money squandering and report-plagiarism, the assembly will not be able to win support from taxpayers.”

Due to criticisms from residents and the JCP, the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly voluntarily refrained from authorizing overseas trips between 1997 and 2001 but resumed them in FY 2001. The JCP has not participated in these trips since 1993.