Japan Press Weekly

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2015 November 4 - 10 [POLITICS]

‘My Number’ project-awarded companies gave 240 million yen in donations to LDP

Akahata on November 8 learned that four corporations which were awarded a public contract for a main program related to the “My Number” system had made more than 240 million yen in political donations to the Liberal Democratic Party over the past five years.

They are Hitachi, Ltd., Fujitsu Limited, NEC Corp., and NTT Data Corp., four of the five-member joint venture group winning the contract to build an information network system pertaining to the national ID system.

According to political funds reports between 2009 and 2013, Hitachi provided to the LDP political fundraising organization 190 million yen in contributions, Fujitsu 60 million yen, NEC 54 million yen, and NTT 17.5 million yen.

The government at first sent the contract for the information network system out for competitive bids, but the joint venture group was the only participant in the bidding. As a result, the JV received the contract amounting to 12.3 billion yen.

Japanese Communist Party member of the House of Representatives Ikeuchi Saori said she found that the cost of the total contract accounted for 99.98% of the government’s target price. It is suspected that bid-rigging was involved.

Many retired officials of government agencies and ministries such as the Cabinet Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs have obtained executive posts at those four corporations, revealing the corrupt mechanism in place among bureaucrats, the LDP, and business circles in regard to large public works projects.