Japan Press Weekly

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2015 December 23 - 2016 January 5 [POLITICS]

10 construction companies win Henoko-related contracts after donating 63 million yen to LDP

Ten major general construction contractors won contracts related to the construction project for a new U.S. base in Nago’s Henoko district in Okinawa after donating a total of 63 million yen to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in 2014, Akahata reported on January 3.

The government awarded seven Henoko-related contracts, which are worth 47.5 billion yen in total, to the ten companies and other construction companies. Tenders for one of the seven contracts were called in June 2014 and tenders for the rest of the contracts were submitted in January and February of 2015.

According to Akahata, the LDP’s political fund management organization in 2014 received 63.21 million yen in total in political donations from the ten major construction companies. For example Taisei Corporation which later won three of the seven contracts and Shimizu Corporation which was awarded one contract in a joint venture project contributed 16 million yen each to the LDP. Penta-Ocean Construction Co. Ltd. donated nine million yen.

In 2013, the amount of political donations that the LDP received from nine of the ten general contractors was only 43.7 million yen. Given that these companies had offered 1.5 times more money to the ruling party just before the dozens of billion-yen contracts were put in a tender, they cannot avoid being suspected of using political donations as a tool to obtain contracts.