Japan Press Weekly

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2007 December 19 - 2008 January 8 [POLITICS]

LDP uses government subsidies as expenditure on firms under its control

The Liberal Democratic Party’s political funds report shows that the ruling party used tax money it received as government subsidies to pay for orders to two firms in which LDP executive members are board members.

One is an opinion poll company and the other is an advertising agency, both located near the LDP head office in Tokyo.

The two firms are under the direct control of the LDP. Each of the past LDP treasury bureau directors general, including present Deputy Secretary General Hosoda Hiroyuki, has been the opinion poll company’s representative director. Motojuku Hitoshi, head of the LDP secretariat, is currently a representative director of the advertising agency established in 1973.

According to the political funds report submitted to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the LDP paid about 12.3 billion yen to the opinion poll company from 2003 to 2006 and about 69.8 billion yen to the advertising agency.

The LDP received 63,557,660,000 yen in government subsidy in the same period and paid a total of 8,217,780,000 billion yen, about 12.9 percent of the subsidy, to the two firms.