| Submit your comments on this article | |
| China-Japan-Koreas | |
| Former defence aide held in Japan inquiry | |
| 2007-11-29 | |
| Japanese prosecutors on Wednesday arrested a former top defence bureaucrat as part of a widening investigation into alleged collusion between defence contractors and the ministry. The investigation, reminiscent of the inquiry into the Lockheed scandal that destroyed the reputation of Kakuei Tanaka, former prime minister in the mid-1970s, came to a head on Wednesday when Takemasa Moriya, who was vice-minister of defence until August, was shown on television being driven away by prosecutors. In parliamentary testimony in October, Mr Moriya had admitted to being treated to hundreds of rounds of golf by Motonobu Miyazaki, a former executive with a trading house specialising in defence, in breach of his ministry’s entertainment guidelines. But he denied that he had extended preferential treatment to Yamada, the company for which Mr Miyazaki worked. Mr Miyazaki was arrested this month for alleged embezzlement of more than $1m. Allegations of corruption have cast a shadow over the defence ministry, which was upgraded from an agency only last year. Yasuo Fukuda, prime minister, on Wednesday said the ministry would have to “work hard to regain public trust” as the scandal threatened to scale the reaches of the ruling party. The upper house – controlled by the opposition Democratic party – has summoned Fukushiro Nukaga, currently finance minister but previously director of the Defence Agency, to answer questions on the alleged collusion with contractors. The investigation into Mr Moriya has centred on contracts to supply engines for the Japanese air force. The defence ministry is well known for paying inflated prices for equipment, though that is partly because Tokyo insists that a high proportion is manufactured in Japan. The probe has further emboldened the DPJ, which in October stymied a bill to extend Japan’s six-year mission to the Indian Ocean, the country’s contribution to anti-terror operations in Afghanistan. The opposition has also threatened to veto a new bill aimed at restarting the operations under a more limited mandate.
| |
| Posted by:lotp |