LDP Releases Investigation Report

Liberal Democratic Party released the result of its investigation on slush fund scandal, in which a number of lawmakers failed in reporting political funds from factions in LDP. Although some knew that they were involved in wrongdoings, they did not stop receiving the secret money. It is still unclear who was responsible for. There is no discussion in LDP so far over imposing penalty on the lawmakers who had committed false activities in politics. 

LDP investigation team on the slush fund, headed by Chairman of General Council, Hiroshi Moriyama, made interviews to 85 lawmakers or possible candidates for next election, who were affiliated to two dissolved factions, Abe and Nikai. The team also made interviews to six secretary generals of factions and policy groups, who were responsible for controlling funds.

 

Among 79 members of Abe faction and 6 of Nikai faction, 32 (37%) had been recognizing that the fund was distributed from the factions or pooled in their offices. 11 members out of those 32 knew that the fund was not recorded on the political funds report. It indicates some members knew that it was wrong for the fund not to be reported, but they did not correct it.

 

However, it does not mean that the rest of them are innocent of the slush fund, because no one guarantee all of them have said the truth. Tokyo District Public Prosecutors office indicted only four lawmakers with charge of false reporting, due to the greater amount of their unreported fund than other lawmakers.

 

53 (63%) out of 85 have spent the fund which they received from factions. They used the fund to have meetings, to buy cars, to pay for the works of their staffs, to buy books or to buy lunchboxes. Although no one answered in the interviews that the fund was used for any purpose unrelated to political activity, LDP seems to have not checked whether the cars had been used for political purpose or the lunchboxes were consumed in political activity.

 

Who did manage those secret funds? Only 12 members (14%) out of 85 were controlling the funds by themselves. In the rest of 73 cases, the funds were managed by accounting managers. Some interviewees argued that they were told by the leaders of factions not to report the money. It is likely that the faction members are escaping from their responsibility for the scandal.

 

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told to the reporters that the investigation did not mean the end of their effort to explain about their dealing with secret funds. “It is necessary for them to take responsibility for explanation,” said Kishida. It is questioned how their voluntary efforts to explain about the slush fund scandal can diminish the public doubts on LDP politics.