Japan Press Weekly

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2017 February 22 - 28 [POLITICS]

Disclose facts regarding sale of state land to private school: JCP Kokuta

The Japanese Communist Party has announced that it will work to uncover all information regarding the extremely low-priced sale of state land to a school corporation where Prime Minister Abe’s wife Akie assumed a post as honorary headmaster.

JCP Diet Policy Commission Chair Kokuta Keiji, also a Lower House member, on February 22 held a press conference in the Diet building and said, “Our party will demand that relevant authorities make public all the related documents pertaining to the process of the selling of state property to a private school.”

In early February, it came to light that the Finance Ministry’s regional bureau sold off state-owned land in Toyonaka City in Osaka to the school corporation “Moritomo Gakuen” at an 819-million-yen discount, about one-eighth the assessed value of nearby state-owned land.

Kokuta stated, “The sale of government land to private ownership at such an unrealistically low price is a problematic transfer of public assets which ultimately belong to the general public.”

The authorities explained that they discounted the price of the land in question because removal of waste buried under the premises was necessary. However, after the sale was made, they did not check if the school corporation conducted the supposedly “necessary” cleanup work.

Kokuta said, “The suspicion of wrongdoing is deepening. The government should release all related documents to the public.” He also said the JCP will work to uncover all the facts, including the specific involvement of board members of the school, and determine if any politicians had a part in this dubious deal.

Past related articles:
> Far-right wing school corporation collects donations under name of ‘Abe Shinzo’ [February 17, 2017]
> Abe’s wife-associated school corporation gets national land at exceptionally low price　[February 11, 2017]