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2016 October 5 - 11 TOP3 [POLITICS]

Koike grills key cabinet ministers over ‘blank receipt’ scandals

Akahata editorial

Japanese Communist Party Secretariat Head Koike Akira on October 6 at an Upper House Budget Committee meeting revealed political money scandals involving Abe Cabinet members. This latest revelation has caused a sensation among the general public.

Koike brought to light the fact that the fund-management bodies of Defense Minister Inada Tomomi, Chief Cabinet Secretary Suga Yoshihide, and Internal Affairs Minister Takaichi Sanae received blank receipts for the tickets to ruling party lawmakers’ fund-raising parties, filled in the amounts on the slips themselves, and attached them to their political funds reports. There is a distinct possibility that they entered false figures in the blank receipts. These acts may be in violation of the Political Funds Control Law.

Figures on different receipts are in same handwriting

In the last few months, Akahata Sunday has reported the political funding scandals related to Inada and Suga. In addition, Koike revealed a similar scandal involving Takaichi, who is in charge of regulating the flow of political funds.

Koike noted that the figures written on about 260 receipts for the tickets to fund-raising parties, which are attached to Inada’s political funds reports between 2012 and 2014, are presumed to be entered by a single person. The total amounts to approximately 5.2 million yen. A handwriting analysis supports Koike’s claim. Inada finally admitted that her staff member did that.

Suga’s case is the same as Inada. According to Koike, the figures on some 270 receipts attached to Suga’s political funds reports during the three-year period are in the same handwriting. The amount totals 18.75 million yen. The writing on the receipts also corresponds to the one in Suga’s reports on political funds.

Regarding Takaichi’s case, the same problem was found in about 340 receipts for payment of a total of 9.9 million yen which an LDP branch headed by Takaichi included in its political funding reports.

Politicians are legally required to publish political funds reports so that the general public can check to see if political funds were used properly. Parliamentarians’ political fund management organizations and their party branches are required to collect receipts for all kinds of expenditures except for the personnel costs. The violation of this legal requirement is punishable by imprisonment of up to three years.

The three Cabinet members bought their fellow LDP politicians’ fund-raising party tickets, received blank receipts, and then filled in these receipts before attaching them to political funding reports. Those receipts prove nothing. If such a practice goes unchecked, it would enable politicians to utilize blank receipts to amass off-the-book funds without leaving any evidence. Furthermore, if the practice of exchanging blank receipts is widely shared among LDP politicians, including Cabinet members, it would undermine the very foundation of the political fund control system.

Cabinet members assume so-what attitude

In response to Koike’s grilling, Inada and Suga acknowledged that they received blank receipts, adding that they needed to do that so that they didn’t have to line up for the reception counters of fund-raising parties. Still, the three Cabinet members insisted that there was no illegality involved. It is a matter of course that a receipt is invalid if it was filled in after being issued and that the use of such a receipt violates a legal ban on false entries.

In order to deal with the persistence of political money scandals, all politicians should strictly abide by the Political Funds Control Law and stop exchanging blank receipts.

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Koike’s Diet questioning was covered by a TV news show on that night and by all major newspapers the next morning.