MOF Plans to Disclose Documents on Moritomo Scandal

The government of Japan submitted to the budget committee of the House of Councillors a list of documents related to fabrication of official documents about Moritomo Gakuen scandal. Ministry of Finance (MOF), which conducted the fabrication, is going to publish those documents starting in April. It is paid attention whether the disclosed documents will reveal what was going on in the ministry in the sales of government-owned land to the private school. 

Osaka High Court in January sentenced to MOF that it was illegal for the ministry not to have disclosed information on fabrication of documents about the sales of government-owned land in Toyonaka, Osaka, to Moritomo Gakuen. The wife of a former staff for MOF’s local branch, Masako Akagi, filed the lawsuit demanding the ministry to disclose the documents. Akagi’s husband was doubted as having been coerced false description by the ministry and killed himself in 2018. The ministry admitted that it tried to conceal involvement of former prime minister Shinzo Abe.

 

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba ordered Minister of Finance, Katsunobu Kato, and Minister of Justice, Keisuke Suzuki, not to appeal to the Supreme Court in February. “We have to seriously embrace the fact that a staff with solemn motivation and responsibility terminated his life,” said Ishiba to the reporters. Although the ministry had been making no comment about the documents related to the scandal, Kato admitted the existence of it for the first time after Ishiba’s order.

 

The ministry decided in March to disclose the related documents. Akagi requested MOF to disclose the related documents which was regarded as having voluntarily been submitted to the public prosecutors office. Ishiba hoped the ministry to show the documents as transparently as possible, because the ministries often disclose official documents with painting black on crucial parts.

 

It was reported that MOF possesses the related documents, which amounts to 170 thousand pages. The ministry is going to disclose about 2 thousand pages, which describes about the process of the deal over the land made in June 2013 to June 2016. It is supposed that the documents include a name of the Upper House member who was involved in the trade of the land.

 

Moritomo Gakuen planned establishing an elementary school on the land purchased from the government, embracing wife of former prime minister Abe as honorable principal. The head of educational institute demanded MOF discount of the land, based on personal relationship with Abe. When Abe strongly denied his involvement in the deal of the land with reference to his resignation, the issue became highly political scandal, inviting skepticisms on the political background of Abe administration. The disclosure of documents is also expected to reveal the details of relationship between Moritomo and Abe.

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