Japan Press Weekly

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2011 September 14 - 20 [NUCLEAR CRISIS]

NPP-related companies donate more than 700 million yen to LDP and DPJ

Companies with ties to the nuclear energy industry donated more than 700 million yen in total to the Liberal Democratic and the Democratic parties in 2009.

These corporations are members of the Japan Atomic Industrial Forum Inc. (JAIF) consisting of power companies, firms related to nuclear power plants (NPPs), research institutes and universities, and municipalities hosting NPPs. JAIF President is Hattori Takuya, who served as vice president of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) and director of TEPCO’s Fukushima Daiichi NPP.

The 2009 political funds report show that the LDP’s political fund-managing body, the People’s Political Association, received from JAIF member companies over 708 million yen.

The Association received 38.5 million yen from each of the nuclear reactor manufacturers Toshiba and Hitachi, Ltd., 20 million yen from Nippon Steel Corporation which supplies the steel needed for NPP construction, and 12.26 million yen from Taisei Corporation, one of Japan’s major construction companies awarded contracts to build NPPs.

The amount of donations that the DPJ’s political fund-managing organ received in the same year was 23.5 million yen, including 5 million yen from nuclear reactor manufacturer Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd., and 2 million yen from nuclear fuel provider Sumitomo Corporation.

Expenses that TEPCO and other electric power companies incurred for nuclear power generation in 2009 amounted to around 2.14 trillion yen, according to the JAIF’s survey.

Payment from NPP operators to NPP-related machinery manufacturers amounted to about 630 billion yen, about 320 billion yen to businesses supplying raw materials such as cement and steel for NPP construction, and about 308 billion yen to major general contractor construction companies.