Japan Press Weekly

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2021 March 10 - 16 [POLITICS]

Opposition parties agree to summon key persons to testify in Diet about lavish entertainment of communications officials

Opposition parties, including the Japanese Communist Party, on March 10 at a meeting of their Diet affairs chiefs agreed to summon key persons to testify before the Lower House Budget Committee about their lavish entertainment of Communications Ministry bureaucrats.

The persons in question are presidents of telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Co. (NTT) and satellite broadcaster Tohokushinsha. Prime Minister Suga’s son works at Tohokushinsha.

After the meeting, JCP Diet Policy Commission Chair Kokuta Keiji said, “The summoning of the NTT head is necessary to dig into what lies behind the company’s act of offering luxurious dinner gatherings to ministry officials because this act allegedly connects with PM Suga’s policy to lower mobile phone fees.”

Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan Diet affairs chief Azumi Jun expressed his determination to make searching inquiries about the allegation that Tohokushinsha succeeded in hiding its violation of the Broadcast Act by offering lavish dinners to bureaucrats nearly 40 times.

Later on the same day, Azumi met with his Liberal Democratic Party counterpart Moriyama Hiroshi to demand the summoning of NTT President Sawada Jun to the House of Representatives Budget Committee. The two agreed to invite Sawada to testify as an unsworn witness before the Lower House committee on March 16, the day after the House of Councilors Budget Committee did the same.

Past related article:
> Report on BS altered after wining/dining of communications ministry officials [February 26, 2021]